


A Dog's Life

by Everlind



Series: A Dog's Life [1]
Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: Dogs, Feels, M/M, have tissues at hand
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-30
Updated: 2013-05-30
Packaged: 2017-12-13 10:33:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 43,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/823291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Everlind/pseuds/Everlind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One day Shishido wakes up to find himself a bit... more hairy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**A Dog's Life**

Winter permeates everything. Outside, inside, it doesn't matter, it's fucking freezing. Shishido's fingers are cramped around his pen, the tips cold and his knuckles aching from being forced in one clutch for so long. With a cup of steaming tea at his elbow, Shishido scratches red onto sheet after sheet of paper, the free hand cupping his chin, elbow balanced on the table. His eyes droop a bit and his concentration fluctuates. Outside the din of the students rages on as lunch break continues. He stops grading his students' abysmal horrid excuse of homework and is gazing with vacant eyes at the mill on the courts outside when his phone rings.

"Yeah?" he grunts, squishing the mobile between his chin and shoulder as he scans an essay before putting it in the 'finished' pile. There's red marks and words everywhere. None of the pupils feel like exerting themselves on homework when the Winter break looms so near. The results are depressing. 

Only half surprised he hears Mukahi's voice snort and say, "No friendly hello from _you_ , eh?"

"I'm working and busy and having a hell of a day," he mutters, circling a passage in furious red and putting three question-marks next to it. He'd write 'what the hell is this shit', but as he supposedly has an exemplary function and thus _responsibility,_ he's not allowed to curse or use any sort of naughty language. Big trail for him everyday. 

Mukahi grunts, "Aren't you usually on lunch break around now?"

"I am," Shishido answers, "I'm just still abusing my red marker."

"Oh," Mukahi says with a laugh, "I think you owe your red marker a holiday."

" _I_ need a holiday," Shishido points out. Lifting is chin out of his left palm, he grabs his tea and sips. It scalds his tongue, but still he shivers. Burrowing in the hood of his sweater he asks, "So what did you want? My break's nearly over and I don't have to time to grade after school."

"Right," Mukahi says, "Ore-sama wanted to know whether you were attending his Christmas soirée or not."

Rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands and accidentally getting a line of marker near his eyebrow, Shishido answers on an exhale, "Tell Atobe that I haven't decided yet."

There is a static silence on the other end of the phone is only broken by a soft sigh from Mukahi. If he knows Shishido's answer, then why bother and call him? "Ryou-" he begins.

"I don't know yet, alright?" Shishido throws in quickly, "I might have something to do and-"

"You and I both know you're just waiting until you know whether Choutarou is coming or not," Mukahi snaps in his most lofty intonation.

He licks at his thumb and rubs over the red mark on his face, scowling. He says nothing.

"You can't avoid him forever," Mukahi says in a more reasonable voice.

"I'm not avoiding Choutarou, just-"

"Just his girlfriends."

***

_It wasn't first love at sight._

_But it was something that burned like a slow fuse being ignited. He didn't wake up one day and knew he was in love. He liked Choutarou, a lot, and of course he did, it was only natural after what they'd been through together. He didn't think this was so strange until an occasional touch from his partner would leave him unsettled and flustered for no apparent reason. He should have gotten used to that, by now, because Choutarou was very tactile with him. Always had been. Nothing dodgy, or anything, just kind gestures._

_Sure, sometimes he dreamed about him, too. But he was fourteen and his hormones were rampant. Just about anything was enough to give him a raging hard-on. If a girl smiled at him that day, he'd wake up at night with his hand in his pajamas and the sheets a whole mess. And okay, sometimes, it happened when Choutarou had given him a particularly bright grin. But still, that didn't_ mean _anything, did it?_

_But as time went by he began to notice that maybe something wasn't quite right. That only solidified into fact when they were in the shower one day, after practice. Jiroh was infamous for falling asleep everywhere at any given time and with no warning. So when Mukahi suddenly went, "Oi, Jiroh, wake up" in the middle of their shower, it wasn't anything new. But when Shishido took a step back and slipped in rather slap-stick sort of way on the bar of soap that Jiroh had dropped a moment ago, Shishido got a nice and painful reality-check. He went down, arms flailing and just caught on to the next best thing he could grab. Choutarou. It wasn't very sexy lying in a heap of naked teenage boy with his face just shy of Choutarou's crotch and being half-concussed. Especially when Choutarou was knocked half silly with the impact and was gasping to get air in his lungs again. Knees shaking, Shishido got up again, pulled Choutarou up and had apologized. Red with humiliation, he'd gotten out of the shower and landed the bar of soap with pin-point accuracy in Jiroh's yawning mouth, causing him to splutter, on the way out. That was it._

_Only it wasn't._

_At that very moment he hadn't been aware of it, really, he was more preoccupied with 'ow ow crap', but that night he stroked himself, eyes squeezed shut in mortification. He was hard and desperate, biting his lips and aching and coming with the ghost-imprint of Choutarou's naked and slick body against his own._

_The ache never left._

_He was about fifteen when he was able to admit that, yeah, okay, he liked Choutarou_ that _way._

_Two more years it took him to gather enough courage to actually admit that to Choutarou himself. Part of the waiting came because he figured that at fifteen he couldn't possibly know what he wanted, right? It might be a phase or something, or a strange fixation on a person who was kind to him, so why blow it out of proportion and maybe blow their friendship up with it? Besides Choutarou had been_ thirteen _. Another boy confessing that he liked him like_ that _might just have shocked him into cardiac arrest._

_Seeing as two years had done nothing to diminish the feelings, quite the contrary, Shishido, with much angst on his part, decided to come clear._

_With even more worrying that he'd just hit a whole previous undiscovered realm of 'lame', he grudgingly decided on Valentine's Day. Also Choutarou's birthday. Not, by far, Shishido's idea, but Jiroh's, who had long since figured out what Shishido was tangling with himself about. One day he opened his mouth to do something else than yawn and had proceeded with telling Shishido that he thought Ohtori felt the same, so why not tell him on his birthday?_

_So Shishido had planned to take Choutarou some place nice and fun that evening after school. And he'd been so nervous, crumpling his cap between his fingers and praying that Choutarou wouldn't freak out and that Jiroh was_ right _._

_And then he'd found Choutarou waiting by their tree, as agreed, but there been a girl by his side and they'd been holding hands._

_It was Valentine's day after all_.

Shishido is thinking about this and angry with Mukahi for jabbing at a sore spot he should know to leave alone now. Somehow the whole team seems to _know_ , even though Shishido has never breathed a word about it. The whole team minus Choutarou that is, because Shishido never got even close to telling him again since that one day. 

His mood is foul and so is Kirihara's when they meet up after his tennis practice. Kirihara and him get along well enough, both having roots in tennis, but no future in it.

Shishido because he wasn't a good enough singles player and tennis wasn't just the same without Choutarou.

Kirihara because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

They work at the same school. History is what Shishido teaches, having a knack for imparting endless dry facts to teenagers, good at making it sound interesting and at making them laugh. Kirihara is the tennis coach, because even though he'll never really _play_ again, his passion for the game never wavered. 

It still sends shivers down his spine to think that if Kirihara had not fallen asleep on that bus, missing his stop at Rikkai Dai Fuzoku and had still not been on it when a drunken truck driver had rammed into it... Well, then it was likely that if he switched on the television during tennis season, he'd see Kirihara crush his opponents with a well-placed knuckle-serve. 

Any other day or time, it wouldn't have mattered. But it didn't happen that way.

So now Kirihara limps when they jog home in silence and the muscles near his eye jump in pain. It's bitingly cold in the early evening and their breath puffs out in silvery clouds. 

"The cold?" Shishido asks him.

Kirihara grunts, but doesn't say yes.

***

It's the day before Christmas. 

As he shops for groceries, fat red santa clauses are plastered over every surface. Holiday decorations drape from the walls while cheesy american Christmas songs croon in the background.

Back home Shishido spends the day catching up on his house-holding, neglected over the past few weeks. All day long his mobile phone rings on and off, his parents, his aniki, his friends. All of them meet the barrier of mono-syllables. This Christmas he'd like to spend alone, he'll go to his parents nice and dutiful on Christmas day itself, but the evening he just wants to laze out and eat junk food. None of Atobe's parties and antics, no needing to grin and act and pretend. That's his present to himself.

Leaving bath only when he's wrinkled and relaxed enough to feel boneless, Shishido decides to grade a few more papers before slacking off. Otherwise he'll never get through the workload. Curled up on his couch, he huddles in a blanket with a bowl of crisps cradled between his crossed legs as he sifts through papers and files, cursing his lack of organizational skills.

Just as he starts to make sense of the chaos, his mobile rings, forcing him to abandon his sad result of decent ordering. 

Legs still on the couch, he leans over and plants a hand on the ground. Papers flutter to the floor as the other stretches for the phone on the low table. Damned if he'll move off his perch. A stack slides off the edge of the couch and the explosion of sheets and essays and tests makes him wince. The bowl of crisps has tilted enough for some to escape. They crunch as they get crushed under his legs and bum. "Hello?" he gasps.

"Ryou!" 

"Jiroh," he acknowledges on a huff as he hops back on one hand, until he's close enough to the couch again so he can pull himself into a normal sitting position again. 

"Where are you?" Jiroh shouts, but his voice gets half lost in a cacophony is laughter and music that blares static in the background. 

"Where do you think?" Shishido answers. He eyes his surviving stacks of papers to be graded. For every one he does there always seem to appear ten more. And he hasn't even a clue how much time the mess around the couch will take to sort through again, let alone be corrected. 

Jiroh makes a little noise, "I thought you were coming!" he sounds crestfallen. 

"Jiroh-" 

It is the same damn song over and over. Shishido closes his eyes and sinks deeper in the nest of his blanket.

Either he ignores the dread in his voice or Jiroh can't hear it over the sheer noise he's in. He just goes on, probably hopping on the spot as he speaks, "I asked Atobe to make it a boys-only night. But he didn't want to exclude his wife and if he let her, he had to allow the others to bring their wives or their girlfriends, but, but, it's really fun here! You don't have to talk to her, even though she's really really pretty and maybe sort of nice," comes the gush, followed by a heaving intake of air. Both Jiroh and he know the 'maybe sort of nice' is a big fat lie.

"I really don't want to know how pretty and maybe sorta nice she is, Jiroh. They all are and I'm still not coming," he answers, feeling his insides go cold and hard, even after all these goddamn _years_.

"But we miss you," Jiroh wheedles and Shishido knows he's pouting. He also knows that Jiroh knows that Shishido has a weak spot for Jiroh's brown, pleading eyes and quivering bottom lip. 

But he can't see those over the phone so it's not so hard to say, "Look, I'll take you out ice-skating this weekend, but I'm not coming tonight."

Jiroh hangs up.

***

He's halfway through a stack of tests to be graded when his red pen dies with a sudden red splatter that covers his fingers, the crisps and the blanket. Yeah, that just figures. It's been one of those days. Shishido's hands remain pink even after washing them three times, scrubbing them raw. Eventually he gives up and selects a new one from his ample supply. 

His phone rings. 

Again.

"No, Jiroh or Gakuto or whoever the hell, I'm not coming!" He yells into the receiver.

"Shishido-san?" 

He drops his red pen. It dies in an even bigger splatter of red since it was still full. Shishido doesn't notice. He sorta stands there, lips parted and frozen in position, like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car. He has to clear his throat and try four times before he can answer.

"Choutarou."

"Shishido-san," Choutarou repeats. Even after all this time he still doesn't call him Ryou even though Hiyoshi and even Taki do so now. "It's Christmas eve, where are you?" 

"Ehm," he manages, groping for an excuse. He should've taken up on his parents' offer to eat dinner with them, at least then he'd have a ready answer. There's no way that Choutarou will accept his just wanting to be left alone for once, not without a solid explanation and the one Shishido has, is one he's not willing to _give_. Not ever. 

"Are you angry with me?" Choutarou asks out of the blue. As always, it's easy for Shishido to read him even if it's just his distorted voice over the phone. Choutarou sounds miserable. 

He blinks and scratches his hair, smearing it with red ink, "No, of course not. Why?"

"Well," Choutarou says softly, "we haven't seen each other for three weeks."

Swallowing, Shishido closes his eyes. Of course it's been three weeks. Ever since Choutarou has asked Yuki-chan to move in with him. It's selfish of him to shut is best friend out like that, but he doesn't know what else to do since it hurts and aches and he feels like something dies just a bit inside of him every-time he looks at Choutarou and knows that's the closest he'll ever get.

Looking.

He can't tell him the truth and can't smile and bear it without fucking bleeding on the inside, so he stays away from Choutarou. Choutarou isn't dumb. He knows something is up, he just still hasn't figured out that his best friend and senpai has the hots for him. Is it that selfish to not want to see some girl pawing all over Choutarou and have them share that secret couple smile for one evening? He's entitled to a freaking break now and then.

"I've been busy," he tries with a nonchalant reply. God he's such a uncool _loser_ at times. 

"Shishi-" 

A voice covers the rest of his name. It's a girl's voice, light and delicate and full of tinkling laughter. Completely the opposite of his. She must be extremely close and hanging all over Choutarou since he can hear her asking nice and clear if Chouta-chan (Shishido gags) wants to come and dance with her because she loves this song and who is it on the phone, sweetheart?

"I gotta go, Choutarou," he says and hangs up.

Despite his trembling hands he feels remarkably calm as he walks towards the window. It opens in a blast of freezing wind and his skin erupts into goose-pimples.

The phone starts ringing again as he throws it into the night. 

It ends with a loud plastic clatter as it flies apart on the pavement.

***

As he lies in bed that night he doesn't cry. 

He stares at the ceiling and tries to figure out when he became such a loser. He's twenty four and still hasn't got a steady relationship. The two men and one woman he's slept with weren't Choutarou even though it's hardly fair and realistic to expect that. He teaches as a high school teacher and goes jogging with Kirihara in the mornings and evenings. Sometimes they play tennis. In weekends he sometimes meets up with his old team-mates. Most likely they'll play more tennis. All his other evenings he sits in his small apartment and grades papers or watches some more tennis when there's a good match. 

Rinse and repeat.

It's not that he gets depressed over it the whole time. He moves on and does his thing and is fairly happy while doing it. Bored, a bit, maybe, but not miserable. Just when it's one of these events of Atobe's, it gets too much. The smiling and laughing even though it's hard not to grind his teeth because he can't even talk to his best friend without that stupid wench crawling all over Choutarou and glaring daggers at Shishido for taking up time Choutarou should be spending on her.

Still, it's weak and lame of him that he can't just get a grip and move on. It should've stopped bothering him so much. But he just can't seem to get over Choutarou. He thinks about him when he wakes up. He thinks about him when he masturbates in the shower. He thinks about him when he stands before his classes and teaches. He thinks about him when he eats. He thinks about him when he plays tennis. He thinks about him when he sits at home grading papers and making a meal. He thinks about him when he goes to sleep. Hell, he even thinks about him with every fucking intake of breath.

And when he sees him and talks to him it's the _best_ thing ever. A natural high. 

Until Yuki-chan shows up and slips her dainty hand in his. 

Shishido wishes he could be with him like that. 

He wishes he could be with him like that and to have Choutarou touch his hair and hold him. Stroke him. Shishido wants to lick his ear or his hands and put his head in his lap and sleep. He wants to wake up in the mornings and have Choutarou smile at him and say 'Hey there' and smile that brilliant smile. He wants to walk on the street with Choutarou and have everybody see them together. 

He wishes.

***

Waking up with his body aching as though he's has had a week's worth of being battered with a thousand Scud serves is not a good way to start the day. He wants to prop himself up and massage his throbbing temples and moves to do just that when he's overcome with a terrible vertigo.

He ends up on the floor, disoriented and something is making a really weird whining noise. 

The hell?

His stomach turns and he wants to put a hand before his mouth before he'll vomit all over himself, but somehow it's doesn't work and something really weird slaps against his head and what the hell happened to his eyes. 

Perhaps he's ill. 

He's moving though, crawling on his hands and knees or something because he's close to the ground. The door-frame knocks into him or maybe the other way around and then he _does_ heave, splattering sick all over the ground. 

The whining is shrill and painful and cut it out! 

Where's his phone? He needs to call a doctor or the ambulance or someone because something's not right.

The whining rises to an ear-splitting crescendo and suddenly Shishido realizes its _him_ that's making that noise. 

Almost like a...

The whine changes into a howl and then he passes out.

***

This time he wakes up to an old man kneeling next to him where he still sprawls on the ground. Panic rises and bile with it and the whining and whimpering is back and _shitshitshit_. NO.

"Calm down, it's alright," the old man croaks. 

He's got a long white beard and is frail and wrinkled and somewhat familiar. Shishido thinks he might recognize him at any other time when he wasn't about to implode with sheer _terror_. 

Calm down? How the fuck is he supposed to calm down when he's a-

No.

No _way_.

"Oh yes way," the wrinkled old creep chuckles. 

_He can hear me? He can understand me? Oh thank god, thank god._

"I can hear you just fine,"

That's good. Because animals can't talk, Shishido is dead sure of it. So he's not a-

"Yes you are,"

_No I'm not a-_

"Yes, you're a-"

_Dog._

"Dog,"

No. This can't happen. This just doesn't happen. He is going to wake up any second now and get up, masturbate in the shower and fix himself breakfast wondering what the hell he's been doing last night to have such a freak dream. It must've been that wine he had before he went to bed, or something, because he's a total uncool lightweight like that. It's happened before. 

Yeah, that's it.

Because people just don't change into dogs overnight.

"You wished for it," the old man says.

_I did not!_ He wants to say, only he... dearmotherholyfuck... growls. 

Like a dog.

The old man caresses his beard. "Well maybe not in those words," he relents.

_The hell?_ Shishido, now that he is getting control over himself, can feel himself bristle and snarl and yap angrily. _I don't want to be a goddamn dog, change me back you old fart! You did this! Do it now or I'll rip you a new one!_

"I only grant wishes, son," the man says. 

_I didn't wish to be a dog!_

Knees creaking, the old man gets up. He waves his hand and the front door of his apartment clicks open. He shuffles through the door and disappears into the hallway.

Shishido flies after him, nails scratching over the floor and barking, as instinct takes over. He scrambles after the old man, who, he thinks, looks a lot like that coach from Rokkaku, but when he bounds into the hallway the man is gone.

Behind him, the door clicks shut.

***

After a good twenty minutes of barking and howling and whining and scratching at his own front door his neighbors wake up and chase him away with a broom. Tail tucked between his hind legs, he runs down the endless numbers of stairs, slipping on the smooth stone and knocking into the metal rail. 

When he starts to wonder and think about how the hell he knows to move his four legs _(four! legs!)_ he gets confused and falls the last flight all the way down. 

Ouch.

It hurts. 

He's dreaming. You can hurt and dream, he tells himself. The automatic sliding doors swish open as he stands before the red eye sensor and runs outside. 

It's fucking cold out, but somehow it's different and bearable. But that might also be because he's running and his blood rushes through his body. 

He runs until he passes through the school gates. Past the courts until he arrives at the club house. He hides in the storage shed that doesn't have a lock because Kirihara broke it before the holidays and even though he's a dog he still knows how to open doors. It takes some scrabbling, but the handle gives and the door slides out of its lock. 

Shishido wrings himself through the gap and hides between baskets of tennis balls. The shed stinks. Sweat and some left-over forbidden food that the kids come to gobble up in there in a hurry and dust and mold. The rubber of the balls next to him is so pungent that it makes his eyes squeeze closed against the smell. It pricks at his nose, which twitches in response. 

Okay. 

Okay. Calm down.

He has not turned into a dog. Stuff like that doesn't happen. He is Shishido Ryou and he is not a dog.

Except he _is_.

His eyesight sucks, but his sense of smell has gone so sharp that it somehow amply makes up for it. He is thinking like a man, but somehow his body knows how to be a dog. He can bark and growl and scratch his ear with his hind leg and... 

Wag his tail. 

As soon as he realizes he's _wagging_ it (how lame!) he tucks it between his legs and sits down on it. 

For the following days he tries to will himself to _un_ be a dog. When that doesn't work he barks and howls and whines for the old man to come back and change me, I'm sorry, I don't want to be a dog and I never wished to be one. 

The old man doesn't come back. 

He gets hungry. 

And thirsty. 

There is a dirty puddle outside and some trash-cans around the back of the school and _no way_ he's doing it!

After two more days Shishido drags his weakened body to the puddle and drinks. In the reflection, after much turning of his head and trying to make the distorted image work, he makes out a dark dog. 

He is taller than he'd expected, but then again he's never been so close to the ground all the time in the first place. Perhaps it's lame to be relieved that he is not a Chihuahua or a Beagle or something small and fluffy that women like Atobe's wife would keep. He doesn't know what kind of dog he is, though. His head and snout remind him of a Golden Retriever, but not quite. His legs are long and strong and his shoulders sturdy. His hair is short and dirty and he needs a fucking bath. 

It's too cold out to get fleas, right?

Right?

He tries to will himself to change back for a few more days before he gives and scavenges the trash cans. There's not much. Either it's so rotten that his human brain balks at the mere idea of swallowing it, or it's so frozen that it takes hours of slobbering and drooling before he can chew pieces off. 

_I'm eating out of trash cans and panting and drooling and lifting my leg to pee!_ Roars through his mind and he hears himself whimper. 

It can't get much worse than this, right?

RIGHT?

***

He awakes to the sound of children screaming.

It takes a while to calm his instinctive dog reaction to defend himself and attack when they surge up to him. Eventually he manages to make himself small and crawl behind a huge heap of threadbare nets and brooms. The stink has sunk into his fur, which is a matted mess of filth and his bones ache from sleeping on the ice-cold floor for days. 

"Coach! Coach! There's a _dog_ in the shed!"

_Go away!_ He thinks, but it's a growl.

Someone tall and intimidating appears at the entrance, backlighted by the cool winter sky coming through the doorway. It's only when the man scratches his curls and goes "Eh?" that Shishido realizes it's Kirihara.

It takes Kirihara the rest of the tennis practice to coax him from out of his corner. It takes Kirihara even longer to put a makeshift leash on him with a rope that some of the kids go and look for on his command. 

He cowers with his tail between his legs when he's dragged outside, legs planted, but skidding over the icy slick ground anyway. He growls at the flock of kids that crowd him, arms like a mass of tentacles flapping at him.

Kirihara, bless him, tells them off. "He's afraid," he says, "He's probably been hiding here for days." 

They feed him stuff from their bento boxes and Shishido gobbles it up so fast he sicks up all over some kid's tennis sneakers. 

"Ew gross!" he screams. His teammates laugh at him.

But he's still hungry. Kirihara gives him stuff from his own bento, but small pieces and not half as much as Shishido would like. "It's because ya'll gave him too much after he musta been starving for a week."

It stays down. 

Kirihara takes him home.

***

Shishido has met Kirihara's wife a few times before. Kirihara Miyami is small and slight and a real beauty and always scares the crap out of Shishido or any other male. She'll get in your face and snap, 'who are you, you got a problem, pal?' while Kirihara smiles, besotted, at her. Somehow they make a nice couple. They have two girls, twins, who seem to have inherited both of their parents most worrisome characteristics as their own prominent personalities. Every instance Shishido has seen them before they run around cackling like Kirihara, boss other kids around like Miyami and cause playground-wide mayhem.

As if those two are not enough, Miyami is pregnant again, only a few months along now.

Hands on her hips, her trademark pose, she looms over the both of them even though she's a good head smaller than Kirihara. "Akaya, no!" Miyami snaps. Steam curls ominously out of the cooking pots behind her. 

"Aw, but look at him!" Kirihara says, petting Shishido on the head.

It shames him how much he likes the sensation. It shames him just how much he wants to go and sit against Kirihara's legs. He's been cold and confused and suffering, but Kirihara fed him and is nice to him and _oh, yes, that's the spot, don't stop scratching there!_

"No," Miyami commands again, whacking a spoon over Kirihara's head before pointing at the door.

Right then their daughters come flying out of their room, slamming the door open so violently that it rebounds hard enough against the wall to click shut again all by itself. They skid to a stop, leaving scorch-marks on the laminate floor, and stare at Shishido.

"DOGGY!" one screams.

"For us?" the other asks.

"NO!" Miyami bellows.

Lips tremble, bottom ones pouting out. Two pairs of eyes water. One big sniff, in practiced and perfected unison.

"Oh no, no, no," Miyami says, "that's not going to work!"

They explode, like veritable out of control water sprinklers, into tears. Their wails are deafening. Snot flows like a river. 

Kirihara clutches his ears. Miyami flicks her spoon at the door, motioning for Kirihara to take the damn dog and go!

The twins scream even louder. Somewhere a glass springs apart by the onslaught. Police sirens wail in the distance. 

And just like that, he's the Kiriharas' new pet. 

***

They call him Kuri and take him to the vet the next day.

Shishido doesn't like the vet. 

She pokes him and jabs a needle into him and _gropes_ between his legs.

"He seems healthy," she proclaims.

_No shit lady,_ Shishido thinks, wriggling in Kirihara's arms as he tries to keep Shishido from jumping of examination table. 

She does give Kirihara extra vitamin supplements to mix under his food. 

After that the terror that is Kirihara's daughters gets unleashed on him. They pull his ears and try to sit on his back and he _lets_ them because he doesn't want to get kicked out. He lies down, the children crawling all over him and stares at Kirihara with a long-suffering expression. 

_Save me,_ he thinks hard at Kirihara.

Miyami watches her demon spawn crawl all over Shishido with a wry look, "At least he's not false," she scoffs.

***

Besides enduring daily sessions of Kirihara spawn tormenting him and having to eat _dog food_ (Dog. Food!) out of a bowl on the ground (the ground!), it's not so bad. Kirihara goes walking with him twice a day and he gets to run around in their backyard. They buy him a chew toy and a plastic ball and Shishido doesn't quite understand why he starts wagging his tail and barking happily when little Yui-chan asks him in a sing-song voice "Dooo yooouuu wanta ball, Kuri-chan? Do you? Do you? Then go get it boy!"

And, so help him, Shishido does.

That weekend, covered in two layers of clothes, Kirihara walks with him to the local pastry shop and waves through the window at the owner. "Yo! Senpai!"

"What is _that_ Akaya?" Marui Bunta asks as he waddles outside. Flour dusts his chubby cheeks and dough is wedged under his nails. Chocolate is smeared over is nose. Behind him on the window display the letters spell out 'Tensai Tarts'. 

Way uncool.

"Er?" Kirihara scratches his curls, "A dog?" he hazards.

"I can see that!" Marui says, crossing his arms. Flour puffs up in a small cloud around him. "I am a tensai after all. I mean, what are you doing with it?"

"OH!" Kirihara says and stops messing up his already impossible hair. "It was hiding in the storage shed when I came back after the holidays. It was all skinny and dirty so I took it home and now it's mine," he says happily.

"Cool," Marui says, and crouches down to his height, "does it bite?"

_Come and find out,_ Shishido thinks but endures Marui petting him, the scents of sugar and cakes cloying so strongly around him it makes him feel both disoriented and causing him to drool. He doesn't really like Marui and doesn't understand why Jiroh still fanboys over him even though he probably hasn't touched a racket in years, judging by his girth.

Marui motions for Kirihara to follow inside, but tells him to leave his dog outside; it's unhygienic for it to come near he food. So Kirihara ties him onto a ring outside the shop, fumbling with his thick mittens, and tells him to "Staaaaay, Kuri-chan, staaaaay. Atta boy," in a real slow voice as though he is stupid.

Shishido tilts his head at him and tries to convey just how lame he thinks Kirihara looks when he makes a kissy face at him when he obediently plants his rear on the pavement. _If only you knew, Kirihara,_ he thinks.

When he comes back out he's brought pastries, making up for Shishido's butt and balls nearly sticking frozen to the sidewalk. Gingerly he gets up, feelingly like a particularly hairy icicle. On the walk home Kirihara feeds more than half of his haul to Shishido.

"Good, eh?" Kirirhara says, as he licks the sugar and cream of his snout, "Marui-senpai makes the best cakeys."

Gobbling down another chunk, Shishido thinks that Marui isn't so bad after-all.

***

After two more weeks of this he feels good and strong and even Kirihara and Miyami's kids that seem to be in bloodshot-mode all the damn time (without actually _having_ bloodshot eyes) don't bother him so much anymore. The only thing that's really fucking annoying is that the girls are _twins_ and have perfected the dubious art of screaming in his ears in ringing unison, leaving him half-deaf for hours on end. That aside he runs and jumps and barks and chases the damn ball and he's strangely... content. 

At times he fears he's becoming more dog and less man because shouldn't he be worried? His parents must be freaking out and he knows his old teammates won't understand why he's gone and are probably trying to find out where he is. At least, Shishido hopes they are. 

A few times Kirihara brings up the subject that a colleague of him has gone missing. But nobody has any idea what has happened to Shishido Ryou and after a while the subject comes up less and less. 

One time Kirihara says that he 'sorta misses the guy because they could talk about tennis you know?' and Shishido starts wagging his tail so enthusiastically he upsets his water bowl.

There isn't much he can do about it, even though he has thought about trying to scratch something in the mud outside. His name and help me, perhaps. He doesn't do it, though, because he is afraid of the reaction or the consequences. He's a man in a dog's body. It's easier for both himself and others to just be thought of as a dog. 

It hurts a bit to look at, but a big part of it, from the very beginning, is also selfishness. Only the old fart can change him back, it's something that sits marrow-deep in his body, there's no need to question or ponder any 'what if's'. So while he waits for that chance, he is stuck as a dog. Even though he's bound to look at humans to care for him, he's also free. Free of any obligation or decorum. The physical part of him is bound, but the mental isn't. He can think what he wants, feel what he wants and there's nobody out there who can question him for it. It's an escape and it's simple. As a dog he has few needs. It takes little to be content. Though, to be honest, he misses really using his brain and the fear that he'll go stupid the longer he stays a dog is always on the back of his mind. 

In effort to stop that from happening he goes over the history lessons he would have been teaching had he not gone furry and drooling and watches game quizzes on the television with the family. If they leave books or magazines open he tries his best to make out words despite the strain on his canine vision. Even though he's not fond of math he does sums in his head and counts to at least ten thousand every day. 

It's not like he hasn't got any time.

***

About a month has passed when they go for a walk in the park. The good food and care have made him strong and healthy and tireless and he strains against his leash because he wants to run. Kirihara's daughters run along side him, squealing with delight and still occasionally pulling his ears and poking his eyes, but he's used to it now. 

But they get tired and Shishido springs up at them and thinks, _come on! I want to run some more!_

Kirihara says, "Down Kuri!" and he pipes down. 

When they get home he's still full off energy and is restless. He empties his basket of dog toys and chews all over the floor, he runs circles around the table, he hops on the couch and gazes outside. Kirihara and the kids don't mind it much, but Miyami sternly stares him down (she's got a magnificent evil eye) until Shishido goes to lie under the table.

He is still there when during dinner Miyami says, "Akaya, you have to let him get castrated." 

Shishido can't stop the shrill yip of utter fear that comes from him. He shoots from under the table and squeezes himself behind the couch. He knew it! He was right to be afraid of Kirihara's wife. He whimpers.

"Eh?" he hears Kirihara say, "Why?"

"He's got too much energy. When dogs get neutered they calm down," Miyami says with terrible detachment.

_The hell, you demon woman, you are talking about my manly parts here! I want to keep my parts, thank you very much!_

"I don't think he wants to get neutered," Kirihara says dubiously.

_Tell her Kirihara! Tell her NO. FUCKING. WAY._

Miyami sighs, "It's a dumb dog, Akaya, he doesn't know what we're talking about."

Shishido whines plaintively, _You want to mutilate me, you bitch!_

Kirihara, the utter traitor, says okay, he'll take Kuri-chan this weekend.

***

It's a friday when they let him in the back yard. Last evening Shishido was extra nice to the kids, cuddling them and not even yipping when they pulled his ears super-hard and licking their faces before they went to bath. He lay down at Kirihara's feet and let him fondle his ears and stroke his now shining fur. He's said goodbye.

He is grateful, he _is_.

But there's no fucking way he's gonna let them _castrate_ him. 

No.

Fucking.

Way.

Even if he stays a dog for the rest of his life, he's keeping his balls, thank you very much.

Before they can stop him he leaps up on Kirihara's car, scratching the paint. Up on the hood, then on the roof and one mighty leap later he's cleared the stone wall. As a human he was known as a dash specialist and he was fast, so it's only natural he's even faster when he has four legs. He speeds down the street, ignoring the instinct to turn back when they call his name. 

***

As if to mock his decision to want to keep his potential for ever fathering future offspring, despite being gay, it starts to snow. Hard. 

After the first flakes fall and cling weightlessly to his fur it takes barely two hours until it piles up halfway his legs. The first two days he manages. After that the snow has clotted in thick dirty clumps all along the fur on his belly, his legs and tail. He's always cold. He's always hungry. It doesn't stop snowing. 

Time passes, hours, days, Shishido loses track of it. The white landscape dazes and confuses him, it feels like being half-awake, but unable to actually rouse enough to realize where he is or what happens.

Those few brief naps he allows himself happen while he shivers and huddles behind trash-cans. He eats out of them, too, if something is in them. Most of the time there isn't.

The skinnier he gets, the colder it gets, too. His coat is one mat of snow and ice and filth, plastered against his body and reeking of garbage and disease. 

At first people sometimes gave him food when he begged. When he begs now they throw stuff at him because he looks like some mangy, disgusting and diseased cur. Shishido can't hunt; isn't even sure he'd be able to actually tear something small and living to shreds and lap up the red coils and organs that are on the inside. Once he backs a rat into a corner. It smells cancerous and is as starved and weak as he is. Only it's smaller and more vulnerable and how lame and sad is it that he can't make himself kill it, even if if would probably save him. So he gets into fights with others trays for scraps food. Even though it turns his stomach to bite and scratch until fur starts flying, he does, because if he doesn't eat, he won't last much longer. Already he is slow, slower than he can afford to be.

Cars roar through the slick streets at neck-breaking speed, tires slipping in the mush of snow and ice. The roads have never caused him such sheer terror and crossing a street is a trail every time. 

Shishido learns to travel by night. It's safer. It's less likely that he runs into people who try to catch or kick him. He's afraid of ending up in a pound. So he is cautious. 

It takes painfully long for him to figure out whether he is going towards Tokyo or not. His stupid dog-o-vision isn't ideal to read road signs and it's not like he can ask for directions. It takes even longer for him to figure out just how useful his nose is. When he does, he's saved.

Shishido recognizes the rickety old shack where they sell ramen first. His tail starts to wag as he trots closer and sniffs around. Yeah, he definitely came here to eat. 

He slinks around there for about a week. The familiarity of the place gives him a false sense of secureness which makes it hard for him to go away from it. When the old lady that sells ramen starts to throw bricks at him, he leaves. 

The food there was never very good there anyway, he thinks vengefully. 

Streets grow more familiar as he progresses onwards. It snows harder and deeper and the small constant shivering transforms into bone-deep bursts of wracking shudders. He hasn't eaten in days. It hurst to lap at the snow and the melted result sloshes cold in the empty, yawning cavern of his stomach. 

He finds the street tennis courts he used to play at. Tennis makes something twist up inside of him and he whines softly, ears drooping. Head hanging, he drags himself out of the park and heads into the streets again. The ground is slick as a mirror under his feet, hard crystal particles coasting along the surface as the wind chases through the empty lanes. He's miserable, but also a bit more awake, the sight of those familiar grounds rousing him enough to recall evenings spend there teaching his then new doubles partner how to control his serve until it was faultless. Years later they still played there and even though new faces appeared once in a while, they always gave up one day. But never them, they never gave up. 

To swing his racket again... 

What happened to his racket anyway? Did they throw it away with his other stuff when it was clear he wasn't coming back home? It must have been a month and half, two now, maybe, he thinks. He counts the week he stayed in the shed. The month he stayed with the Kiriharas, the two or something weeks he's been on the street again. 

Are they still looking for him?

Do they miss him? 

Does Choutarou-

Something blares at him and he looks up, but he's blinded by a white light and something screeches, chilling his blood.

The sky is under him and above him and a sickening crunch tosses him into the searing white light.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. Chapter Two

**A Dog's Life**

"This is one tough dog," he hears.

He aches. He's in a million pieces and pain lances through every fucking millimeter of his body. But he's alive. He whines brokenly and thinks _I'm still a damn dog. Crap._

Hands kneed him and he whines as pain flares up so brightly it nearly swallows him up.

"He's got no tag or identification, though. And he's quite malnourished, he must've been on the streets for some time now. Not a bad feller, though, are you?" The man (vet?) says, "Didn't even try to bite even though he must hurt all over."

The stink of his own body clashes in the worst ways with the sharp, sterile smells of the office around him and the medicines in it. Shishido nearly gags on it, but his body is too gone in the steady pressure of pain that he isn't even able to heave and rid himself of the rancid liquid snow that needs to come out.

"What do I do with him?" another voice asks.

Shishido goes absolutely still. He knows that voice.

"Well," the vet says, "Either you keep him or give him to someone, or I put him to sleep."

"... to sleep?"

He knows that smell.

"I put him to sleep and give him an injection that stops his heart. He won't feel it. The local pound won't take anymore dogs this month and he'll starve on the streets or freeze to death. Better he doesn't suffer at all, don't you think?"

He whines softly. _Don't kill me,_ he wants to say. But he can't because he's a dog.

"Easy boy," the vet says, stroking his side carefully, "I'm going to have to sedate him, so he won't move around to much."

_NO!_

_No, I don't want to die!_ He tries to scramble up, but everything is on fire and his body doesn't want to move. He slips through the vets arms and jumps off the examination table, but his legs can't hold him and he lands in a useless lump with a shrill whine. Nails scrape on the floor as he tries to run, to hide, anything.

Arms come up around him, awkwardly, and he stops struggling.

Because it's Choutarou.

***

They sedate him anyway, but he doesn't go down without a fight.

Everything goes soft and hazy and _see_ , it was all a bad dream anyway.

***

But they don't kill him.

The first time he peels open an eye it's to the sight of Choutarou kneeling next to him and saying, "Hey there, boy," as he smiles down at him brilliantly.

Shishido faints again, this time probably from shock.

***

The second time he wakes up, he feels a whole lot better.

Cradled in a nest of blankets and pillows, Shishido gets his head up after a few tries so he can look around. He's tucked in a corner of a magnificent kitchen, all clean and expensive appliances and deep cherry wood cabinets lined against the walls and a matching table able to seat over six people across the huge window. He knows where he is; he's been here hundreds of times easily, has pulled that fridge open as though he was at home and has peered in it for a snack. Has eaten at that table with a mountain of take-out set out on it, spread over the whole length. Right now there's only a bowl of water set out for him, just too far for him to reach without moving.

He's _parched_.

It takes an inordinate amount of time to get his legs under himself. When he does, victory is short lived because everything starts spinning like an out of control theme-park attraction.

Two steps and he collapses into his bowl with water and lies there panting, lapping from the spreading puddle on the floor.

Choutarou comes flying into the room, sliding on his socks and bowling into the door-frame with a dull thud. He rubs his shoulder absentmindedly as he blinks down at Shishido for a moment. Then he pads over and kneels next to him.

"Easy there, boy," Choutarou soothes, tilting his head a bit, "were you thirsty?"

Shishido would roll his eyes if he could. _No, Choutarou, I'm lying in a puddle of water because I have nothing better to do and don't you fucking recognize me?_

Choutarou fetches him a clean bowl of water, full to the brim. He only lets him lap up half of it though.

"Not too much," he admonishes, "or you'll get sick."

Remembering heaving up on some poor kid's shoes, Shishido moderates his lapping. Drinking makes him feel better and second attempt at walking goes better, too.

He pads out of the kitchen, curious. He hasn't been at Choutarou's house for _ages_. Choutarou follows him, eyes wide and questioning as though he's never seen a dog in his life before.

Exploring, Shishido sniffs and pads around, nails clicking on the tiles. Every once in a while he sways a bit as he goes, but he's lucid enough to realize the sedation is doing that to him. Choutarou keeps close to him, weary, probably worried that he'll lift his leg and pee on his nice furniture. _Would serve him right, too,_ Shishido thinks, _for nearly reducing me to smear of roadkill._

"Where did you come from, boy?" Choutarou asks him (as if he can answer!), "Did you run away? Have you got owners? Someone who misses you?"

Shishido plants his rear on the floor and stares up at Choutarou. He was extremely tall when they were both humans, but in his dog body, Choutarou is freaking _huge_. He thinks about Kirihara's devil spawn and Kirihara himself with a pang of guilt.

But was run for it or lose his testicles.

Easy choice, really.

Then he darts into the bedroom before Choutarou can stop him. Now he can have a good stare and nor be suspcious. Not that he has never been in there before, but his frank curiosity is not up for question when the other thinks he's a dumb dog. However, being a dog doesn't stop him from recognizing a discarded bra hanging from a chair and the pungent scent of _sex_ in the room.

He tucks his tail and crawls under a nearby desk, curled up in misery.

No matter how sweetly Choutarou coaxes or what he says, he doesn't come out.

***

Hiyoshi is a dog person.

Shishido would never have guessed.

Before he knows it he's on his back with Hiyoshi scratching his stomach. His leg is flapping in the air and it's utterly humiliating except it feels _really good._

"You're a really handsome boy, aren't you?" he says, grinning down at him.

 _Why thanks, Wakashi, I never knew you felt that way,_ Shishido thinks and lolls his tongue even more so because he starts to laugh.

When he stops scratching Hiyoshi looks at his filthy fingers and says, "You'll have to give him a bath, Choutarou, this poor guy's covered in dirt."

 _Yes! Yes! Thank you!_ Shishido thinks hard at him. He's never felt so affectionate towards _Hiyoshi_ , of all people. Affectionate enough to want to jump and lick his face and ears. He checks himself, he's _not_ licking Hiyoshi's face, dog or not.

"Don't dogs hate baths?" Choutarou asks dubiously.

"We'll find out right away" Hiyoshi points out, "come on," he says to Shishido who pads readily alongside of him, lolling his tongue and wagging his tail.

Choutarou trails behind and mumbles, "He really likes you." He sounds a bit reproachful.

 _Well, duh,_ Shishido thinks, _Wakashi doesn't use his girlfriend's bra to decorate his room and shock my poor canine mind._

But he feels a little guilty after all.

With a scramble he jumps into the bath. The tub is slippery and his legs slide around, nails rasping; keeping check of all four of them is harder than he'd expect. Hiyoshi unhooks the shower-head and twirls the taps. Spraying it on his own hand first, testing the temperature, he then directs it to Shishido.

It's _heaven_.

The water that comes out of his pelt is scummy and swirls down the drain in a muddy stream. The stink of garbage is heavily present in the steam that rises up from the water. Hiyoshi asks for some soap, something neutral. Choutarou comes back with a white bottle and holds it out to Hiyoshi. Hiyoshi looks at him.

"Don't you want to do it?" he asks.

Choutarou blinks, "Ah, yes, I suppose."

He takes the shower-head from Hiyoshi and perches on the edge. He squirts a liberal amount on Shishido's back and starts to tentatively work it into his fur. He's not half as good at it as Hiyoshi, but not by any means bad either. It's just that Hiyoshi has the touch for it, mostly because he isn't afraid of Shishido and Choutarou is, a bit. He's always been more of a cat person. Nevertheless, it's Choutarou's hands that are stoking over his body and slipping under him to wash his belly and cupping over his eyes so there won't get soap in them. There's no way that can be bad.

 _Hello, cosmic irony,_ Shishido thinks. He's finally made it; he's in bath with Choutarou washing him and touching him and for al intents and purposes he's naked, since he's a dog and they don't wear clothes.

But that's the catch, isn't it? He's a damn dog.

The soothing circling motions stop, "I don't think he likes me much," Choutarou says, crestfallen, "he's stopped wagging."

 _Whoa, hey, don't stop!_ He wags extra hard, swishing water out from his tail in wide arcs, drenching Choutarou's crisp white shirt.

For a second he cringes, because Choutarou's face does something funny and _oh crap I pissed him off probably a shirt he got from Yuki-chan,_ but then he bursts out in gales of laughter.

Shishido admonishes himself, _Choutarou would never hurt me_ and starts wagging again.

***

The next thing he does is take him to Atobe's.

Actually the first thing Choutarou does is buy the whole freaking pet shop for him and _then_ he takes him to Atobe.

They have a brief tussle when Choutarou wants him to get in the car, but some part that is not Shishido's rational brain causes him to whine and howl and refuse. He presses himself against Choutarou's legs and stares up at him, shivering. Car is not okay. White light and the smell of gasoline and no fucking way he's getting in.

So they walk. It's quite a hefty distance, too. They're halfway and he starts to hurt, muscles aching with lingering stiffness from being hit by the selfsame damn car that Shishido now wishes he got into. When he was human Shishido was hardly the one to give in to some physical pain. As a dog, that strange sort of pride remains. He pushes himself, until he starts to pant and his tail and ears droop and shit he never knew he could hurt so.

But he makes it. His rear sinks to the ground of it's own accord when they reach the impressive gates with Atobe's mansion in the distance behind them.

He shivers and lets Choutarou pick him up because his body has shut down.

"You're heavy," Choutarou says softly, looking down at him.

Shishido hangs his head, panting with pain.

"And you're really stubborn, too, aren't you?" Choutarou continues, even though the maid that leads them towards the in-door tennis courts gives him a strange look, "you just had to go on, didn't you?"

Shishido pants some more, thinking, _yeah well as if it's not bad enough that I have to rely on you to pee and eat, I have to let you carry me like a baby, too._

As they enter the courts, Shishido's tail does a tentative wag, for two reasons 1) tennis courts and 2) his team. The latter comes surging up to Choutarou, except for Atobe who smashes a ball in Oshitari Yuushi's court.

He's put on the ground near a bench and he sits down gratefully because even though being in Choutarou's arms is nice and all, it hurt too much to fully appreciate the irony of that, too. His tail pounds a few times on the ground when Hiyoshi strokes his back and he wags some more when Jiroh and Mukahi and Taki all crouch around him, touching and exclaiming.

"It's quite a big dog," Taki says, cocking his head at him. Shishido cocks his head back. "What kind is it?"

Choutarou sits down on the bench and looks at him, "I have no idea, actually."

At which point Atobe comes sashaying towards them and says loudly, "It's a mutt. Not a breed at all."

 _Well, screw you, Atobe,_ Shishido thinks, giving him a look, _next time I'm shitting under your imported rose bushes._

"It's obviously something that came of the streets, isn't it? There'll hardly be any pedigree in this one," he continues.

With a glare he thinks, hard, hoping that Atobe can feel the impending doom, _scratch that, I'm shitting in your patent Italian leather shoes, you asshole._

But his dog face must not be able to convey the looming threat and apparently the expression is read as _Oh yes I'm a big dumb dog and I love being insulted and please pet me_ because Atobe comes over and stokes his head, too.

And always a step behind Atobe, Kabaji drops one of his big, heavy hands on Shishido's head. He doesn't ruffle or pat, just rests it there and smiles at him. _Smiles_. As though Shishido is the cutest little puppy he's ever seen.

This all sucks.

But not really.

When he the pain lessens Shishido starts to trot around and sniff, immersing himself with the smells of tennis and his friends. He steals a tennis ball and chews on it, slobbering, as he lies down between Choutarou's legs.

Between. Choutarou's. Legs. Oh yeah, the irony of it all is definitely going to kill him one of these days.

His friends are talking idly about everything and nothing and Shishido tunes it to the background until Jiroh quietly says, "How's things with Yuki-chan?"

Shishido stops slobbering and perks his ears. He's noticed that. A day or three must've passed at Choutarou's now and there has been no sign of Yuki-chan and Choutarou hasn't been looking too well either. He looks pale and withdrawn and often stares hours into nothing.

"Ah," Choutarou's hand falls down to trail over his head, "She's coming back this weekend. It'll be alright then."

"Hm," Oshitari grunts, "Are _you_ alright?"

"I'm fine," Choutarou says, "I don't... I can't talk about it... without..."

What's happened? Shishido wishes they'd press him, but they don't. In the heavy silence that follows he feels that everybody is miserable. As a dog he picks these moods up just as easily as he can pick up each and every scent, even it was left by something weeks ago. It's a strange sense to have, the so called 'sixth one'. He whines and puts his head on Choutarou's thigh.

Who looks down and vaguely smiles at him.

"Are you going to keep it?" Mukahi asks, reaching out to stroke him, too.

"I'm not sure. I kind of want to," Choutarou says, "I did nearly kill him and he's a very nice dog."

For an instant Shishido doesn't know what to make of that. He was quite convinced that he would be given away to Hiyoshi sooner or later, since the latter has been making noises about how he was such a nice dog and all and about how he wouldn't mind having a dog like him one day. Not only that, but Choutarou just isn't a dog person. He's taking care of Shishido _now_ , sure, because he feels guilty about the accident and Choutarou is a bit of the nurturing type when it comes down to it. But he didn't expect he'd get to stay when he got better. Dogs and Choutarou don't really mash well, since Choutarou would always back up a bit when a friendly dog came wagging and panting up to him. Even Mochi, Shishido's parents' dog, who is the most genteel creature ever, couldn't convince Choutarou that an open mouth and unfurled tongue were a good thing, a friendly thing.

So why would Choutarou, who was just a bit afraid of dogs, keep _him_? Shishido can't really work it out.

Later Mukahi throws the slimy tennis ball and Shishido runs after it, even though his body is stiff and awkward with lingering pain. Choutarou plays a game against Jiroh and then doubles with Taki against Kabaji and Oshitari.

Shishido tries very hard no to be jealous, but it doesn't quite work.

After, Choutarou calls for him to go, "Let's go boy, come on! Where are you?"

There's no wag in his tail as he comes trotting up at him. He's too busy missing tennis. Choutarou clicks the leash onto his collar and ruffles his fur.

"Aren't you going to give him a name?" Hiyoshi asks.

Choutarou goes very still. He's holding Shishido's head cupped between his large warm hands and is looking down at his face. He looks very sad. "Well, I was thinking about..." he swallows heavily, "about Ryou."

Everybody, Shishido included, goes rigid.

"Ohtori-kun..." Oshitari says softly.

Choutarou is stoking him, with long deliberate movements. He doesn't answer.

"Do you think that's a good idea, hm?" Atobe says, "You're going to be reminded of him every-time you have to call your dog, naa Kabaji?"

"Usu."

"I _know_ that," Choutarou says, a bit angrily. Then he grimaces apologetically, "It's just that he reminds me..." he brushes his knuckles against Shishido's cheek.

He's still reeling of it. In some strange and twisted way Choutarou _does_ recognize him. And misses his human-counter part.

Choutarou stands up, but is still looking at him, "It's stupid, but it's the color of... of his fur and the look in his eyes. I don't think Shishido-san would appreciate me naming a dog after him, but," he stops.

Shishido wags at him, _you're forgiven Choutarou. Because I_ am _the damn dog I'm willing to over-look you naming something slobbering and canine and supposedly not so very bright after me._

"It does sort of fit him," Mukahi concedes.

Atobe shakes his head, "Ore-sama thinks it's phenomenally bad idea. You couldn't even hear Shishido's name a week ago and burst out in tears. You even drove your girlfriend away because you couldn't accept that he's gone and-"

"Enough," Choutarou says and miraculously Atobe does. Somehow the world doesn't implode.

"It's my dog," he adds, "And I think Ryou is perfect."

***

After he gets named with his _own_ name, hello there again cosmic irony, the next big thing that happens is the return of Yuki-chan.

He won't forget that easily because she screams when she sees him.

"There's- there's dog in your house!" She shrills at Choutarou. Yuki-chan's powers of deduction leave much to be desired for. But, at times, she gets it right.

Yes, congratulations, there's a dog in the house.

It's at times like these Shishido misses the ability to express sarcasm pretty bad. Around her he could smear it finger-thick on everything he said and she'd just never even realize he wasn't being serious. Hell, so okay, yeah, Choutarou has a god-awful taste in girlfriends, something his opinion wouldn't differ on if he was as straight as the lines on a tennis-court and not in love with his best friend, but Yuki-chan takes the cake. In a Marui Bunta sort of way. Shishido doesn't think he has ever abhorred any other human being as much as Yuki-chan, and, alright, much of it is pure jealousy. Honestly though, the other part is her being such a dumb, insipid, shallow bitch. For other girlfriends he could make an effort and play the role of the supporting, if gruff, best friend of their boyfriend. Yuki-chan, however, with her rhinestone bedecked accessories and big-ass sunglasses even in winter, she just makes it too easy for him _not_ to.

"Uh, yeah," Choutarou says. He smiles at Shishido.

Shishido smiles back. Of course that translates to his tongue unfurling and starting to pant. Lovely.

Yuki-chan makes another strange little noise. The way she looks at him you'd think that Choutarou hasn't gotten a sweet Labrador-esque dog, but a three-headed dragon or a great white shark. "I'm _afraid_ of dogs, Choutarou!" she says, clutching at his arm.

 _Only heartless people don't like dogs, woman,_ Shishido thinks. _Look at me, I'm fluffy and made of love and cuddliness._

Not really, but he attempts to ooze love and cuddliness because he doesn't want to get booted out. And that means that Yuki-chan has to like him. He wags at her and tentatively noses against her bony ankle.

Yuki-chan screams even louder.

"I thought you were allergic to cats," Choutarou says, frowning a bit, "I didn't know you were afraid of dogs."

So that's why Choutarou's old cat isn't around anymore. She made him get rid of her. Shishido stops wagging.

 _Evil,_ he thinks at her instead.

"You don't know anything about me," Yuki-chan says, pouting and tearing up. With a pathetic little sniffle she covers her eyes with her hands.

 _Oh god, kill me now,_ Shishido sighs inwardly, _You're not gonna fall for that one, are you Choutarou?_

Except he does. He kisses her and comforts her and has _sex_ with her on the kitchen table (at which points Shishido hides in the bathtub) and murmurs he adores her and has missed her.

Afterwards they have dinner, at least Choutarou and he do, while Yuki-chan picks at a bowl of salad and counts calories. That doesn't refrain her from spoiling _his_ fun and pointing out that dogs should have dog food, Choutarou, not BBQ steak.

 _Evil_ , Shishido thinks at her again. _He fucks you on the table, so at least let me have my damn steak._

She chases him of the couch when he jumps up like he has been doing whole damn week. "Get, get!" she says, flapping a hand at him. It's the middle of the fucking winter and she's wearing some gauzy thing that gives Shishido a better idea of her assets than he ever wanted to have.

They have sex on the couch, too.

Shishido wishes that Choutarou would have hit him a bit harder or would give him away to Hiyoshi.

***

He spends a two weeks cowering behind the couch, under the table, in the bathtub, wherever Choutarou and his girlfriend are not having sex that moment. Which is everywhere. There apparently is no end to Ohtori's libido. And no fucking way he's contemplating the endless possibilities of that when he's a _dog_. Except he does, a little. He loses his appetite and starts to shed from the stress.

Yuki-chan complains about his fur clinging everywhere.

Shishido starts taking revenge by brushing up against her designer clothes when they come back nice and crisp from the dry-cleaner. Once he chews on one of her pink and sparkly pumps, but she goes crazy and starts to throw stuff at him. With force he manages to crawl _under_ the couch instead of behind it to get in a fire-free zone.

Choutarou buys him more chew toys. He ignores them, but doesn't chew on her shoes again either. That lesson he's learned, there was only need for one demonstration. Chew on her pumps and die a painful dead through being pummeled by random objects and bras. No thanks.

The damage is done, however, because since then Yuki-chan blames everything on him.

***

Spring arrives in a swirl of cherry blossom petals when she screams one morning that he's eaten her Channel purse. As though he could digest that without needing to see a vet to get it out again. When Shishido goes to fetch it (it was under the bed, dumb ho) she screams even louder that he's _ruined_ it. There's drool on it and for some reason that equals disaster. Shishido would like to know what she expects when the opposable thumb thing is just not kicking it for him lately.

"Get rid of him!" she says.

It was only a matter of time.

But Choutarou says no. He takes his leash and says, "Come, Ryou, time for your walk."

He starts to wag until he realizes the utter freezing silence that settles over Yuki-chan.

"What did you call him?" she asks, voice brittle.

Shishido presses himself hard against Choutarou's legs. Something is not right and the dog part of him is suddenly afraid of Yuki-chan. Choutarou brushes a comforting hand behind his ears as he clicks the leash on his collar. "I've named him Ryou," he says carefully.

Now that he thinks about it, Choutarou hasn't called him that ever since they were at Atobe's. Which was a really long time ago.

"You... you named it after _him_?" She breathes, her mouth, slick with lip-gloss, starts trembling again but this time Choutarou doesn't fall for it.

Instead he goes motionless.

"Yes, I have," he says coolly.

"Why?"

"He was my best friend, Yuki-chan," he starts, "and I-"

"Best friend?! He didn't talk to you for three whole weeks!" she yells, "Is that what best friends do?"

"I would have talked to him, but then he d-disappeared and I never got the chance. He is my best friend, there was just something bothering him-"

Yuki-chan advances and prods him in the chest with a manicured finger, a pink rhinestone on the nail. She draws herself to her full height, tip-toes, and doesn't even reach his shoulder. "I'll tell you what was bothering your precious Shishido-san!" she hisses with her teeth bared.

_Oh shit._

"Your precious senpai and so-called best friend was a _faggot_ and was in love-"

He starts barking loud and louder still. The fuck, if even Yuki-chan noticed it, then he must have been pretty damn bad at pretending as though he was _not_ stupidly in love with his best friend. At this rate it seems to be a small miracle that Choutarou never noticed.

"-with you! And SHUT UP, you stupid dog!" she moves towards him and Shishido presses himself against Choutarou again.

Choutarou touches his neck to comfort him, but his expression is stricken. "That's not true, there's-"

"Then you're even stupider than I thought!" she wails, but suddenly she is a lot less scary and a lot more delicate and miserable, "You're so naïve."

Choutarou is shaking is head, "No," he says.

Yuki-chan is crying, but now it's not crocodile tears. She looks at Shishido, "I don't know what was between the two of you, but your attachment to him is hardly natural, either. You've even named the dog after him!"

She looks at Shishido as though it's all his fault. Funny how that's true, too.

"We were friends, I don't understand-"

"You cried for weeks when he disappeared!"

"Of course I did-"

"Enough, Choutarou!" she shrieks with a sob, "I want you to choose. Me or the dog."

Choutarou's fingers tighten painfully in his fur, "What?" he breathes quietly.

"You heard me," Yuki-chan says.

"What does _he_ have to do with this?" Choutarou wants to know.

Shishido resigns himself to a life with Hiyoshi or whoever will take him. Everything has gone to hell. He thinks about the old man or whatever he is and wonders what the purpose of him being a dog is when he only makes Choutarou as miserable as he was.

Suddenly the door slams so hard that Shishido gives a yip (a manly one!) of surprise. He can hear Yuki-chan scream in the hallway, "I hope you and your goddamn dog will be very happy!"

***

Choutarou sits on the couch and cries, cursing softly.

Shishido doesn't know what to do. He's ruined everything. He didn't like Yuki-chan, but he never meant to break them up. Okay, not true, he would have rejoiced if this had happened before Christmas, rotten though it is of him. But now he's a dog and though he never had a chance with Choutarou before, now it is non-existent. First he lacked the proper plumbing and breasts and now he has hair all over his body and drools.

Tentatively he hops on the couch next to him.

"I'm sorry, Ryou," Choutarou says, drying his eyes on his sleeves, "must've scared you with all that yelling."

If only he had arms and hands and was human again. He wishes he could hold him and comfort him and dry those tears.

Instead he licks them off.

***

The moping lasts for about a week. Then he takes Shishido out to the park. They meet up with Oshitari, Gakuto and Hiyoshi. It's one of those dry but cold days in spring. The trees are in bloom and it's a pretty awesome sight to have them snow petals all around him. His jaw clicks on air when he jumps at them and tries to snap them up.

"Heard from Yuki-chan yet?" Mukahi asks. He's got a knit cap pulled over his head and is wearing such a thick jacket that you can't tell whether he's a boy or a girl. Grated; most of the time you'd have trouble telling what is supposed to hang between Mukahi's legs (and _ew_ gross), but today he resembles the contents of a wardrobe that sprouted legs and went out for a walk.

Choutarou shakes his head and throws a tennis ball for Shishido to fetch. He doesn't seem to care that it's covered in slime since Shishido got a little carried away with the _yay ball!_ -part. He can't help it, dammit, as soon as that balls arcs overhead he starts to slobber all over himself and chases after it. They walk in silence for a bit, while Shishido bounds around thinking, _throw it! Throw it throwitthrowitthrowit!_

Hiyoshi smiles at his enthusiasm. He can't remember seeing Hiyoshi smile as much in years as he has now, since he's been a dog. "I can take him, if you want. I don't mind and if it fixes things with Yuki-chan.."

Shishido stops bounding and he looks up at Choutarou. He tries not to do the puppy-dog-eyes-thing, but he suspects he's doing it anyway.

He's shaking his head, "No. It's over. If Yuki-chan is jealous of my _dog_ , then what more will be waiting for me in the future? I don't understand what she has against Ryou, though."

"I think the fact that you've named him Ryou just about sums it up," Oshitari points out in his thick Kansai drawl as he cleans his glasses with a kerchief.

 _I_ am _, Ryou, dumbass,_ Shishido thinks at Oshitari, _and people call you a tensai._

"Well, I don't get what she had against _him_ either," Choutarou mutters, "I was friends with Shishido-san long before I got together with her."

At least the not liking part wasn't entirely one-sided Shishido thinks with a bit of relief. Most of the time he likes girls just fine, but Yuki must have been the shrillest, obnoxious and most beautiful specimen he's ever had the displeasure of knowing. Perhaps she has her good sides. Shishido has yet to find out which those are. There must've been something redeeming about her if Choutarou liked her enough to want her to move in with him. But there's no way Shishido could live together with someone like that and not take a blunt and rusty knife to either his wrists or her head.

"I don't think Shishido Ryou and Ryou the dog where the only problems in your relationship with Yuki-chan," Mukahi says from somewhere in the depths of his jacket that seems to swallow him up more the further they go.

"Huh? What do you mean?" Choutarou asks.

 _Yeah, what_ do _you mean, Gakuto, bring on the dirt,_ Shishido thinks, cocking his ears and taking care to trot along-side their acrobatics player.

"Did you really love Yuki-chan?" Mukahi asks him softly, but earnestly.

Indignant and pained, Choutarou exclaims, "Of course I did! I...I cried all _week,_ " as he says this, his eyes start swimming again.

Shishido glares at Mukahi, _look what you did,_ he thinks.

But Mukahi is smirking, all nice and proud of himself, the little shit, "Well I think that just answered your question."

With a sniffle, Choutarou says, "I don't get it."

_Me either._

"When Ryou disappeared, you cried for over a month," Mukahi points out.

The blood drains from Choutarou's face.

"And you still cry when you're forced to talk about him," he goes on.

"I-"

"And you cared and did things for him you never did for Yuki-chan," Mukahi presses on, "Heck, you don't even do them for us."

"That's not true," Choutarou says, choking down his anger and tears.

"You know it is, Choutarou," Hiyoshi interjects.

"We were best friends!" Choutarou says, but his voice is starting to rise.

"Yuki-chan and everybody before her were your girlfriends, Ohtori-kun," Oshitari points out, "doesn't that count for something more? Something deeper?"

A look passes between him and Mukahi that screams 'true ever lasting love for ever and ever and ever' and god Oshitari is such a _sap_.

"You just don't know how to care for anybody else but Shishido Ryou, so maybe it's good you can start caring for something else by practicing on the dog," Oshitari says.

"I care for you guys!" Choutarou protests.

"Not like you cared for Shishido," Oshitari says with a tone that books no further argument, "start with the dog. If you can care for that, you can try a girlfriend again and maybe this time she won't dump you."

***

Lying on the couch and watching Choutarou pace back and forth and back again and hear him mutter, "Stupid Oshitari-senpai, thinks he's the love doctor, doesn't know what he's talking about, none of his damn business," keeps Shishido entertained for a good twenty minutes. But enough is enough so Shishido barks at him.

"Yeah, you're absolutely right," Choutarou mutters.

Sure, Choutarou, Shishido thinks, talk to the dumb dog, that's healthy.

In fact, Choutarou keeps looking at him strangely. Then he reaches out and fondles one of his silky ears, murmuring, "Really the same color."

Of what? Mud? Chocolate? Dirt? Poop?

Choutarou isn't making any sense.

***

After a week, they establish a routine. He's officially Choutarou's dog now, with a tag on his collar that has 'Ryou' engraved on it with his owner's address on the back. He's officially _owned_ by Choutarou. He _belongs_ to him. He's _Choutarou's_.

Irony and him are closely acquainted now.

Also he sorta starts to _get_ what the old creep was quacking about him wishing to be a dog but not in those words. He gets to do everything he wanted to and has dreamed about. In the evening he curls up against him and plants his head on a muscular thigh. Sure he can lick Choutarou's face (and his mouth yesterday but that was honestly an accident) and sure he gets rubbed and touched and stroked. They walk the street with everybody seeing them together.

Only catch being that Shishido is a dog.

Anyway, Choutarou gets up early. The first thing he does is take him for a walk. If he doesn't Shishido throws a right fit, barking and whining because he needs to be let out to relieve himself. It's absurdly one of the things he misses most about being a human. Pee when he wants to and not have to wait until someone remembers his pressing _needs_ , dammit, because he really really really needs to go and hurry it up! Choutarou lets him do his business in the park around the corner, while he scratches his hair that looks like a Brillo pad in the mornings.

That done Choutarou has his shower. Those last ages and Shishido is faint with hunger-pangs by the time he finally emerges.

Speaking of which, three days ago Choutarou came out of the shower stark naked and whisteling, damn him, and Shishido was reduced to fleeing under a chair and tucking his head under a paw. Stupid guy was all 'What's wrong Ryou, what's wrong boy?' crouching beside him still stark buck nude, everything in plain view and all Shishido could do was was whine and think _put on some goddamn clothes you moron cause you're freaking gorgeous and my brain's about to fry and I'm a dog and it's disgusting._

By now, to preserve his otherwise rapidly slipping sanity, Shishido waits in the kitchen, staring avidly at his dish. Now that there's no Yuki-chan to remind Choutarou that dogs eat dog food, Shishido pointedly refuses anything that comes canned or in whatever and is meant for dogs. Choutarou can be a big softie, nothing new, but even though Hiyoshi says he's being a snob by refusing his cans of gourmet beef in gravy, Choutarou feeds him whatever it is _he's_ having.

He spoils him.

Rotten.

Shishido gets a real kick of watching Choutarou cook and know it's for two even though one of them is a dog.

Then he leaves for work. Choutarou teaches violin in some posh and well-known music school when he's not having a concert. So Shishido roots around and explores and finds out that Choutarou, for some incomprehensible reason, has Shishido's tennis racket hidden in a drawer in his bedroom. His tail still spontaneously wags when he thinks about it. His racket is in one piece and looks in perfect condition. Often he spends hours gazing at it lovingly when Choutarou's away.

Other hours he spends trying to get the wardrobe open. Patience was never exactly his forte. But the day he finally gets it wedged open far enough to slip inside he comes upon his very first cap. The blue one. For some reason however that makes him more sad than happy, and he doesn't really get why either. After that, he leaves it alone. Another day he comes upon a bra under the bed that must belong to Yuki-chan or some other long-forgotten girlfriend. It's a terribly expensive one, all lace and silk and tiny stitched details and Shishido chews it to a bazillion pieces. Needless to say Choutatou isn't very happy with him when he comes home and complains that he had just vacuumed yesterday and now he has to start all over again.

Shishido stretches out on the couch, smug, and _still_ gets scratched on his belly despite his crimes.

Oh yeah, Choutarou is a sap and will spoil him rotten twice over.

When he's not been defiling bras (he can't bring himself to chew on dainty lace panties because that translates to oral sex by proxy in his head) Choutarou takes him for a walk again when he comes back for work. It's the best outing of the day, too. An hour, at least, Choutarou makes sure. Shishido runs and fetches tennis balls (he refuses anything not tennis-related) and jumps and gets ruffled over the head for his antics.

Supper is a repeat of breakfast. Whatever Choutarou's having, or nothing. Hiyoshi will shake his head whenever Choutarou mentions this with a fond smile directed at him. After supper Choutarou will do either one of three following options 1) go out with friends 2) watch television 3) practice violin.

In case of Nr 1, he always tries to take Shishido with him. Typically he'll play tennis in the evening. Most likely with Hiyoshi or Jiroh. Shishido gets to watch and feel nostalgic. Or boil in envy, depending his mood. When he doesn't take Shishido with him, he goes out for dinner or dancing, he's not sure. But it'll be late when he does get back.

Nr 2 is the one Shishido grows fond of. When Choutarou watches television or props in a DVD, Shishido can practically crawl into Choutarou's lap without consequences.

The last option, Nr 3, is the one that occurs the most. Violin. It's both awe-inspirening an wonderful and painful to hear Choutarou play. He's amazing. Though sometimes the dog part of him will start to howl when certain notes pierce his sensitive ears. Not in a hurting way, but it makes him want to... answer it.

The first time Choutarou frowned and asked, "That bad, huh?"

Shishido lacked the words and expressions to tell him he loved it.

Either way, Choutarou takes him out one more time before he goes to sleep. Like in the morning, it's just to make certain Shishido will last through the night and is thus a short walk. Back inside he'll change into pajamas. He reads for about an hour on the couch. Shishido tends to sit next to him and tries to read along. Though his eyes are not made for it, it reassures him to realize he still isn't too dumb to read.

Bedtime after that. Choutarou ruffles his fur one last time before the bedroom door slides shut with a final click.

Mostly he sleeps on the couch. When it's too warm he lies on the cool tiles of the floor.

For a dog's life, it's not too shabby, he supposes.

***

It's a weekend and the temperature is changing, but still indecisive, dropping and rising like a bucking horse. Today it's warm and Shishido lies under a bench panting furiously and shedding so much it's embarrassing. Choutarou vacuums every other day to keep the hairs from getting everywhere and combs him regularly. His coat is becoming shorter and slicker and the sunlight touches a gleaming shine to it.

A tennis ball rolls over to him, but he can't bother to get up and steal it since it's too fucking warm and why do dogs have so much fur, anyway?

Choutarou and the rest of his teammates are playing on the courts and the sweltering heat drenches their shirts so they cling to their backs. Even from here he can pick out the smell of Choutarou's sweat, now an utterly familiar something.

Someone calls Choutarou's name a few times, but the latter is so caught up in his game that Shishido comes to the rescue and barks. The sound is deep and clear and carries easily over the general din.

"Nee-san!" he exclaims and then frowns as Oshitari slams a ball into his court.

When he comes over, Oshitari is smirking at his retreating back and Shishido lifts his head. Ohtori's sister has reproduced and there's a small Choutarou-esque boy hanging of her hand. His hair is black, though.

"This your dog, then, Choutarou-chan?" she asks.

Choutarou nods and calls him over.

Mini-Choutarou cries "PUPPY!" and proceeds with pulling at his ears.

"Ah, Kazuki-chan, don't pull his ears, that hurts him!" Choutarou says faintly, reaching out to untangle sticky fists from where they are wrapped around his ears.

 _I've dealt with worse, believe me,_ Shishido tries to convey, _try two mini-Kirihara's._

Kazuki-chan ignores the advice, however, and garbs again and _yanks_.

The yelp can't be stopped as Shishido pulls free, leaving a wad of fur clinging to the chubby fist and changes his mind to, _never mind. This one's evil, take it away!_

Choutarou picks Kazuki-chan up. He's not similar to Choutarou in temper, not at all, because the little gremlin pulls on his hair, too. Choutarou bears it with dignity, however.

Finishing their games, the others come over too, to see what's going on. Shishido's ear smarts and he stays nice and clear from Kazuki-chan. As tiring and wild Kirihara's girls were, they were not as inherently evil as this one. He realizes that the conversation is about him and he ignores most of it until Choutarou's sister asks, "So is it house-trained?"

Shishido is indignant. He tries to convey this by staring long and hard at her.

Of course, like with a lot of things, Choutarou makes him feel all warm and gooey when he says, "Yeah, he is. And he can do a lot of other things, too. He's really smart."

_Thanks, Choutarou._

But then he ruins it by adding, "For a dog."

 _Oi_.

"Just look at this," he says excitedly and takes a yellow and blue ball from his pocket. It's the one he has on him at all times when they go for a walk. He throws it. Then he throws six or so normal yellow ones. They pounce in random directions on the court. Lastly he throws a yellow and pink one.

"Go and fetch the yellow and blue one, Ryou," he commands, pointing a finger.

 _Excuse me?_ Shishido thinks, cocking an ear, _you insult my intelligence and then you want me to do tricks? Fetch the damn ball yourself._

With a decisive thump he plants his rear or the ground and looks the other way.

Even Atobe chuckles, "Your dog is a bit of a drama-queen, Choutarou."

_Look who's talking._

Choutarou adds a sugar-sweet "Please."

 _The things I do for you..._ Shishido thinks to himself as he trots unto the courts. It's not as though he can really tell the blue and yellow one from the pink and yellow one. Dog-o-vision doesn't come with the full spectrum of colors. But he can keep them apart from the different shade between the blue and pink and the fact that he watched where the blue one fell.

Full of slime, he drops it in Choutarou's hand.

"Tadaa," he says with a smile at his sister. For some reason, no matter how much drool and spit and slobber he gets on the balls, Choutarou will always take them without cringing. Even _he_ still cringes when he takes a previously be-slimed ball back in his mouth, the surface slick and cold and stale. Yuck.

"That's pretty good," she concedes with an indulgent smile.

Jiroh, who has spend hours just trying to find out what he could and couldn't do (with much 'UWAAH' and 'SUGOI'), grins, "This is even _better_!" in his left hand he holds one ball, in the right three, "With hand has the most balls? One bark for right and two barks for left," he asks.

Shishido barks once. Jiroh varies it by increasing or decreasing the number of barks and balls, and changing between hands. Obviously, Shishido gets them all right.

Rubbing behinds his ears in just the right way, Jiroh admits, "He only wants to do it with tennis balls, though."

 _Gotta draw a line or you would have me performing on national television,_ he thinks.

With a wave of her hand, indicating him, Choutarou's sister says, "He's really good."

_Thank you, thank you. The real tensai of this outfit never was Oshitari, you know._

Out of the blue she adds, "Is he neutered yet?

He howls. He can't help himself. Hiding behind Choutarou's legs he complains to himself, _AGAIN with neutering. And it's always the women, too. No_ wonder _I'm gay._

Thank GOD that Choutarou sounds mortally offended and disbelieving when he chokes out, "C-ca-castrate him?" he manages with a stutter.

"Unless you want to breed with him? He's a handsome dog, though, maybe you can even make some extra money with it," she reasons blandly, as though she's not meddling in Shishido's sex life (non-existend though it is, but it's still _his_ _private_ non-existant sex life!).

"Er," Choutarou says intelligently.

Shishido barks at him.

"Well, if your not, then you should put him out of his misery and let the vet give him a little snip snip," her voice is all baby talk when she says the last and looks at him, smiling as if she's just not proclaimed to have his balls hacked off. And that's not all, oh no, her index and middle fingers make a little scissoring motion in time with the words.

_Misery? I'll show you misery! I like my balls just fine where they are!_

He cries.

He shivers.

The whole team looks at Choutarou's sister in mutual terror. Mukahi says faintly, "I don't think he wants that." Though he makes it sound as though 'snip snip' defies any sort of common sense at all. He's speaking for all of _man_ kind, of course, be they animal or human.

He goes to sit on Gakuto's feet. He's always had a soft spot for him, actually, now that he thinks about it. When they weren't pulling each other's hair, that is. A hand pats him comfortingly on the head. Everybody shoots him, the so-believed dumb canine, a look of sympathy.

Choutarou is shaking his head, "No, ah, he's fine like this, right Ryou?" Snip snip didn't go down the right way with him either; he's a bit green in the face.

He barks loudly.

Choutarou smiles at his sister who rolls her eyes and huffs "men" and "such babies" under her breath.

When they walk home, Shishido is wagging so enthusiastically it throws him occasionally off balance. Fingers scratch behind his ear.

"Don't worry," Choutarou murmurs, "you're mine and there's no way I'm letting them do that to you."

Licking the hand that touches him, he thinks with dazed relief, _Thank you, I love you, marry me._

***

It seems impossible to Shishido for him to feel any stronger for Choutarou and not fly apart into thousands of little bits of himself. There is no way it can fit all inside. Lame, lamer, lamest. Yes, thank you.

Of course, he's wrong.

The more he sees of Choutarou, the worse it gets. The feeling aches and strains within him at times, however uncool and girly it makes him feel. And that's not only caused by the physical aspects, though, admittedly, they are very appealing. It's just the whole combination of his looks and personality and habits. Even odd or bad ones.

As a dog he's seen as something neutral and fairly innocent and not capable of forming any bad opinions. So Shishido gets to see a side of Choutarou he'd never would have seen had he been human. It's a side that even girlfriends don't see of him. It's the side of Choutarou when he thinks there's nobody around to see what's he's doing.

Except one dog, but that hardly counts, right?

Some of them are funny at first, but get really annoying after a while. Most are just quirky and dorky.

Sometimes he cracks each and every joint in his body. He always starts with his fingers, nice and slow, one by one. With a flex he does his wrists. Each elbow and, rotating them, his shoulders. His knees and then his ankles, also rotating them or forcing them to bent unnaturally. His toes. And then (no kidding!) his jaw. Neck next. Lastly, with one might stretch, his whole back, every single damn vertebrae. As a bonus, he can make his breastbone pop, too.

He nods when he agrees with something on the television.

There's a t-shirt under his pillow that looks insanely threadbare and has almost no color left at all. When he worries he'll take it out and press his face into it. Always he breathes in the scent deeply. Shishido, curious, has gone to sniff it himself, but it smells just like laundry-detergent and Choutarou.

When he plays a video-game and he's losing or dying or just frustrated with it he'll string together random words such like, 'fuck no jumping shit okay get out of my ear not good damn pizza'.

Also video-game related, Choutarou can't kill friendly NPC's. Not even accidentally. When he does he'll re-start his game no matter if it was aaaaaages ago he saved or how well he's doing. Shishido will always bark and think _what did you do that for? If the fuckers are in the way, just shoot them!_

For no reason and no apparent stimulus he'll start to do push-ups at any given time of the day.

His violin case must be in the smack dab middle of the glass cabinet he keeps it in. Only if it's perfectly lined up with everything else can Choutarou go and do something else. Sometimes he checks and does it again, even though it hasn't been touched since.

He makes his bed again before he goes to sleep. Then he'll rumple the sheets up and nest in them, not unlike a dog himself.

He bites his cross or puts it between his lips. Or he'll hitch it up his face, the silver chain straining, the cross resting on his nose. It leaves funny red chain-link impressions on his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose.

Shishido could go on for hours, but there's a last one that's new. Lately, Choutarou wakes up in the middle of the night, white as a sheet. He'll come and find Shishido, who'll be stretched out somewhere, all good and asleep, and hug him awake. His hand will go for his chest and cup over his heartbeat, almost as if to check if he's really alive.

He wonders if Choutarou dreams that he dies at night or something equally horrifying.

Unfailingly he'll lick away the tears that come.

***

It's summer when things change.

The clocks read after three in the morning. It's saturday and Choutarou went out. When the bell rang, the people picking him up were a bit drunk already. Shishido thinks he recognized some of Seigaku's old tennis players. He's sure of one, at least, because no one can say 'Nya Ohtori-kun let's have fun' like Kikumaru does.

Not that he begrudges Choutarou having fun, but man, he really needs to _go_. Choutarou always takes him out one last time before bed, but as Choutarou hasn't even gotten home again, the third walk is significantly postponed.

He may be a dog, but he doesn't want to say goodbye to his last shreds of dignity and do something as lame and degrading as pee in house.

Half past three in the morning.

What's taking so long?

Also, he's worried.

Choutarou's not much of a heavy party-animal, so it's unusual for him to come home this late. What if something's happened to him? Not that Choutarou needs protecting, because even though he has a heart of gold, he's long surpassed even Kabaji in height and has a chest and shoulders that'll make you think twice and twice over again before potentially offending him.

But Shishido now has a whole mouth full of razor-sharp teeth meant for rending things apart, and it bothers him that he's not with Choutarou to use them if need be.

Through the windows the sky is gradually starting the bleed to lighter tones again. It's summer, so that still means that it's god-awful early, like a bit past four or something. Besides nearly going crazy with the urge to relieve himself, he's stating to feel sick with deep distress. And there's nothing he can do.

As he contemplates an attempt to jump through a glass window, the front door clicks.

His heart falls to the floor with utter relief.

Choutarou nearly falls through the door with an armful of woman.

They step on his heart, which lies there vulnerable and bare. It explodes into a smear of red and gore.

She's gorgeous, even more so than Yuki-chan and the others before. Her figure is fuller, curvy and sensual, just short of being heavy. Her hair his glossy and cascades through Choutarou's fingers. He's blushing, not from alcohol, Shishido can tell, but because she's so dominant and unashamed and sexy that he gets timid. Before he can close the door, she's pulling at his shirt and a flash of taut, muscled, pale stomach gets bared, branding itself into Shishido's mind.

A noise comes from him, so raw and animalistic and yet so human that it hurts.

His legs, all fucking four of them, move of their own accord. He's out the front door so fast it's impossible to stop him. Down the street he races, numb everywhere, his head, his chest, his fucking bladder. Houses and streets blur together. He crosses the small park and turns into the first street he finds.

Abruptly, he stops and pisses against a lamppost.

He's run far. Something rises up within him. He's free. It's summer and it's warm, he can figure out how to- how to hunt and survive and not be caught before winter comes. He'll go to Chiba, somehow, and find that old man.

The impulse to turn back, however, is so strong it's impossible to hear himself think clearly. It is all dog. An anxiety to go back to safety and security and _home_. To go home and be taken care of, not outside hungry and filthy and scared. To be loved and touched and stay with the person who's so kind to him.

It's a crippling, over-powering urge. A need. Pressure build within him and the compulsion to take a step back draws a whine of pure anguish out of him.

But fuck that, he's human inside, not dog. Shishido starts to run again.

"Ryou!" Choutarou shouts, "Ryou, come! Where are you?"

He freezes in the middle of a street.

Choutarou screams, "Ryou NO!" at the top of his voice.

The frantic scramble saves him from being hit head-on by an oncoming car. The tires shriek and the night fills with the scent of burning rubber. It still catches him, however, his rear, and he whines sharply. He's tossed aside, sprawling. With effort and with a limp, he gets to the sidewalk. But nothing's broken, he thinks.

God, what is it with him and cars? Fucking murder machines.

He sits and pants with fear for all but two seconds before Choutarou flings his arms around him. Shaking with shock he mutters gruffly into his neck, "Oh god, oh god. You scared me terribly, why did you run away?"

 _Did you not notice the carcass of my broken heart on the way out?_ he thinks, but licks Choutarou's cheek and neck to show him he's okay.

The man gets out of his car. His face is bloodless. "Is he alright?" he wants to know. When Choutarou leans back to show Shishido wagging his tail half-heartedly, he gets angry. "What did you think you were doing, letting him run loose like that? You're lucky nothing worse happened! What if I had swerved and hit something? Or another person?"

It's early enough to be considered night and there no one in the street but them, but the man has a point. Choutarou, still trembling, apologizes over and over again and so sincerely and wretchedly even the driver starts to get uncomfortable.

Eventually _he's_ the one reassuring Choutarou it's alright, that's he's just had a real scare, no harm done. He even pats Shishido on the head, "I'm relieved he's okay, it's such a beautiful dog, too. Such a nice color his fur has."

When he gets back in his car and pulls out of the street slowly, Choutarou hugs him tight enough to hurt his already aching body, "Don't run away like that, Ryou, god. What if it-" he can't finish the thought, "oh god," he only says again.

Then he kisses him between the eyes and carries him back.

 

 


	3. Chapter Three

**A Dog's Life**

Her name is Naomi.

She's a dog person, too.

They meet up with her when Choutarou takes him on their long walk. Even in bright daylight and not in a sexy outfit she's beautiful. Shishido gives it his all to hate her, but when she scratches behind his ear (oh god yes right there, don't stop) his tail wags despite himself. 

God, his life sucks.

***

Over the course of the following weeks, Choutarou sees Naomi almost every other day. They're dating. Or something. He tries not to think about it too much. 

Shishido suspects that if he'd just stayed put and tried to live through the two of them fucking each other brainless that night, that'd been it. But what with his running away and Naomi's horror (genuine, too, damn her) about him nearly being reduced to a hot dog, she and Choutarou started _talking_ when they got back after his misadventure. 

Phone numbers were exchanged that early morning and _bam!_ Shishido had dug his own grave. 

Seeing Choutarou fall in love (or just lust, he's hoping a bit) is like slowly having pieces of his gut being pulled out through his throat. 

_Yes,_ he thinks hard at the old man, _I get it, being gay is wrong and horrible and this the way nature designed us to be. Stop it, please. God, please. Please._

He still drools, no matter how hard he tries. 

***

They're at the street courts. 

Cicadas are out in full force and the searing heat scorches him alive under his fur. It feels as though slowly, agonizingly, his flesh and muscles and tendons are melting into a bubbling sludge around his skeleton, drooping down over the bones to form a nice, gross puddle on the ground. Everything wavers like a mirage, ethereal and a bit fuzzy around the edges. Lying on his side, he tries to press as much of his body to the minimally cooler ground in the shade. 

So he lies under the bench and watches Choutarou play. He's doing really well, despite his shirt being saturated with sweat and his squint against the sun that must be giving him a pounding headache. His Scud serve is so fast it isn't more than a streak of yellow against the pinkish hue of the early evening. The impulse to want to try and catch it is, this time, both human and canine. 

Naomi is there, too. Even Hiyoshi, who has a girlfriend (seven years together now) looks at her occasionally. Understandable, too, since she's wearing a simple summer dress, but it clings to her curves and her hair is so shiny and glossy it's worthy of waxing poetry about. She's like a sensual goddess of fertility or something; screaming sex but not looking like a whore at all.

Even Atobe raised an approving eyebrow at her when Choutarou introduced her. 

It's hard to hate her. She doesn't squeal or clap her hands at every point Choutarou takes, nor does she bounce and purposefully jiggle her (ample) breasts. She doesn't twirl her hair or toss it constantly back over her shoulder. She doesn't jut her hip when the boys look over. 

No, she watches intently and her hand slides in soothing paths over his back. 

"You're a good boy, aren't you, Ryou?" she murmurs to him. 

He doesn't nearly believe it himself, but Shishido _likes_ her. 

When Choutarou comes over to drink deeply from his water-bottle, Naomi doesn't start to titter excitedly about him being amazing and good at tennis. She does say that it looks like fun. Choutarou shows her how to hold a racket and how to swing. His arms are around her as he moves her through the motions. There's a blush on his cheeks. He plays an easy game against her, but Naomi isn't half-bad. However she declines a second game.

"You're too good," she laughs, "you must've practiced really hard in school."

"Ah, no," Choutarou tells her sheepishly, "I had a very good senpai who taught me to never give up. My best friend, too."

"Lucky,"

"Yes," Choutarou swallows. 

Naomi seems to catch his troubled expression, "Do I get to meet him, sometime?" 

Everybody on the court goes silent. Choutarou doesn't answer, he just crouches next to Shishido and gently strokes his muzzle. 

It's Oshitari who answers. "He disappeared half a year ago, we don't know what happened to him," his dark eyes dart to Choutarou.

Shishido doesn't dare to breathe.

"Disappeared?" Naomi asks, surprised.

"On Christmas Eve, left everything behind and left no traces. Police gave up on him two months ago," Oshitari continues calmly, but his eyes remain on Choutarou.

Choutarou abruptly stands up, "Shishido-san didn't just leave. He'd never... not without saying something. Something happened to him," the last he utters with the sort of deep and utter conviction nobody dares to question.

Nobody besides Atobe, that is. "Ohtori, nobody knows what-"

Again, Choutarou, his kind, polite, respectful Choutarou cuts him, Atobe Keigo, off, " _I_ know. I know _him_." 

_No, you don't._ Shishido thinks, hanging his head, y _ou didn't know half the things in my head when I was around you. Your brain would've imploded otherwise._

Conversation is killed for the rest of the evening. Choutarou's mood goes black. Shishido would feel guilty if he was directly responsible for leading things to where they are stranded now. 

But he isn't, not really. He never wanted to be a dog. He'd _un_ dog himself if he knew how.

Not for the first time he imagines pawing his name into a stretch of sand. So they'd know he was alive and well, though furry and smelly. Relief all around? He's been like this for over six months. Nothing has changed. He's tried everything within his grasp to _not_ be a dog, willing, concentrating, envisioning, magic words, praying, heck he's even appealed to all the gods from all the religions he knows. For a moment he's hoped that a kiss, like in a ton of fairy-tales, would've been the answer. But Choutarou'd kissed him after the accident and Shishido has accidentally licked his mouth once, and a second time deliberately in hopes of that doing the trick. The second time was supposing his feelings must've been consciously behind it, and so he tried, thinking real heard 'I love you I love you I love you' while jumping up at Choutarou and lapping his tongue against his lips. 

Should've been romantic, the first kiss, but it wasn't all that. Especially since Choutarou was all 'Ack Ryou' and went to wash his face.

Not that he really blames Choutarou.

There's only two options left, somehow find the old man or death. 

Which leaves just the old man as his only chance. 

That aside, what if he'd do it. Write his name in misshapen kanji in the mud and what then? He is a man in a dog's body. Everybody would be sorry for him. He'd be some sort of freak, good to study and experiment on and to shoot documentaries about. A guinea pig. His friends and family would be crushed and horrified. There's not much to improve his situation. 

At least now Choutarou freely hugs him and touches him and talks to him. 

Maybe his parents would still do that, too, if they knew their son was a slobbering canine. But it'd break their hearts a bit, too, wouldn't it. And it's quite likely his life-span is that of a dog's, too. He'd die before them. What would they do when their son is an old, crippled, demented dog that pisses and shits all over himself? Have the vet stab a needle into him and put him out of his misery? Have chemicals pumped into him so he'd live on for a meager amount of days more? Which will still lead to them finding his stiff and cold dog self on the floor somewhere? Or maybe he'd change back when he dies and they'd find their son lying there, curled up like the dog he had been and hard with rigor mortis. 

Yeah, no thanks. 

A small voice insists on pointing out that it's big hunk of selfishness, too. In a way he _has_ Choutarou now. Not in a way it truly matters, not really, but to him, having Choutarou so unguarded and open and completely himself is a bit like getting a wonderful, unexpected gift after ending up in the hospital after a crippling accident. He likes the pure, unrated version of Choutarou. And, selfishly, he wants to keep it for himself, just a little longer. 

He's had a lot of time to think about it. There are moments when he wants them to know so _badly_ , but in the end he always chickens out. 

It's for the best. 

***

Another week passes and Naomi stays the night.

Shishido whimpers to himself behind the couch, unable to cry and no way to scream but the voiceless kind within the prison of his mind.

Their grunts and cries of passion and the 'Oh god Choutarou, don't ever stop' echo through the night.

***

The shedding starts again. 

This time he gets bald patches. Choutarou takes him to the vet (the same one who patched him up after the first time he got hit). The man prescribes extra vitamins and advises him to keep an eye on him, maybe he's stressed. 

Naomi pets him and murmurs, 'what's wrong, darling, does it hurt somewhere?' at him and curls her body around his comfortingly in the evenings. The scent of her skin is clean and a bit floral from her perfume, but it's overlaid by a masculine muskiness now. 

Alternately he loves her and hates her. But she makes Choutarou happy, he guesses, in a way he can't possibly do, especially now (oh _gross_ ).

Choutarou frets. He takes him to three different doctors and tries everything they recommend.

Of course, nothing helps. 

Every night, he crawls behind the couch.

He hears them anyway. 

***

Salvation is near when Choutarou has a concert. He asks Naomi to spend those two weeks abroad with him. They've been together for over two months. 

Shishido is a ghost of himself. His fur is dull and patchy, his eyes vacant. He lets himself slide into full dog-mode, which is like an auto-pilot. Dog knows what to do. Shishido sits back and lets the instincts take over. But it makes him uneasy to let his humanity be overruled by those alien animalistic urges, so he doesn't dare do it much. The strain shows.

Hiyoshi is visibly appalled when Choutarou drops him off.

"I've tried everything," the latter says wretchedly, "I don't know what to do anymore."

Licking the hand that cups against his jaw, Shishido tries to show, _it's not you. Not really._

Naomi hugs him and kisses his nose. She adores him. 

It gratifies Shishido just a bit to see how reluctant Choutarou is to leave him behind. Hiyoshi promises to call everyday. Yes, he'll take Ryou to the vet asap if his condition worsens. Yes, Choutarou's told him Ryou likes Château-brian in the morning. Yes, the yellow and blue tennis ball is right here, Choutarou, and go on or you'll miss your flight. Yes, he'll call every single day, didn't he say that already?

Choutarou finally leaves after he's held Shishido in so tight a grip that his blood-circulation is cut off. Poking his nose against Choutarou's neck, Shishido breathes in deeply. Though everything he's come in contact with clings so him, mixed with Noami's perfume, he can pick up the essential, core smell that is _him_.

With a click the door shuts.

Nodding his head, Hiyoshi says, "C'mon boy, let's go."

***

After a week Shishido feels ten times better. His pelt is still uneven, but the copious shedding has stopped and the shine is returning. One downside is that Kiki, Hiyoshi's girl, uses too much cleaning detergent and Shishido sneezes constantly during the first days, dog snot flying everywhere and causing Kiki to clean some more. 

The second downside is that Hiyoshi and his girlfriend really know how to keep him awake at night, too. Hiyoshi is a screamer. Shishido is still trying to figure out how he'll ever be able to use that against him. Thoughts of blackmail do a little jig in his head. If he figures out how to write with a pencil between his teeth, he'll leave Mukahi an anonymous note. 

Besides that, Hiyoshi's is great. His girlfriend dotes on him and _would_ feed him Château-brian in the mornings if it weren't for Hiyoshi himself.

"He's a dog, Kiki," he says in that deadpan way he has, "he'll eat his dog food when he's hungry. Only Choutarou is crazy enough to spoil him like that. Ryou's more of a snob than Atobe, that's all."

Shishido eats his dog food (he's not like Atobe, he's not!).

They enjoy having him around and it shows. Special trips are planned. They take him with them just about everywhere. After they are done keeping the neighbors awake with their steamy sessions, he even gets to sleep in their bed. Initially he refused. The smell of Hiyoshi's come and Kiki's arousal was enough to weird him out through the next ten years and then some, but Shishido has gotten lonely, too. He misses Choutarou and so he hops onto the bed and nestles against them. Hiyoshi digs his fingers into his fur and strokes him until he falls asleep.

Every evening Hiyoshi faithfully calls Choutarou. Every time Choutarou will ask Hiyoshi to 'put Ryou on the phone'. Every time he'll say, 'hey there Ryou, how are you boy?' and Shishido will bark into the receiver and his tail will start to wag like mad.

"He misses you," Hiyoshi says.

And isn't that the damn truth?

***

Something unexpected comes up for Hiyoshi and his girlfriend so Shishido spends one night at Oshitari's and Mukahi's.

He does try the pencil thing, since Mukahi is there and all, but with no result besides Oshitari saying, "is the dog trying to _write_?"

And yeah, writing dogs go against nature's laws, so Shishido pretends he was just chewing the pencil to bits above a sheet of paper that just happens to be there. Nothing to see here, people, move along.

Besides having to suffer Mukahi putting ribbons in his ears, pink ones, too, (I may be gay, but there's no need for me to look like it, too, Shishido thinks at him), it's sorta alright. 

Funny thing is that he gets an inside view on everybody's sex life. Not that he really wants a front row seat to that, but yeah, nobody thinks about the _dog's_ feelings, do they?

They have loud sex, too (It's seems to be a reoccurring theme in his canine career that Shishido is starting to resent). 

But there's something he notices. Mukahi and Oshitari have loud and kinky sex (think handcuffs and aprons and feather-dusters and please, kill me NOW), but, when they're done, Oshitari brushes his knuckles against Mukahi's cheekbone. Their lips brush, but not quite and Oshitari murmurs things like 'so beautiful' and 'love the way your eyelashes flutter when you come'.

Oshitari is a sap.

But it's kinda romantic anyway. 

Not that Shishido will EVER admit that. 

But, yeah well, they have dirty kinky sex, true, but it's also true that they are utterly and completely in love with each other. Mukahi might be in a leather cat suit with unconventional holes and zippers in equally unconventional places and he might moan 'Yuushi I've been a naughty boy', but in the end, even Shishido, his brain scarred beyond repair, can see that they love each other. 

However uncool it sounds, it's in their eyes and in the way their touch afterwards.

***

Same thing with Hiyoshi and Kiki. 

Once he's trapped in a corner and there's no way out but over. And no, he's not jumping hurdles over fucking couples, ugh. 

And once again he's got a front row seat (KILL ME NOW, I BEG OF YOU!). 

Hiyoshi is quite an animal himself, thrusting so hard Kiki glides across the floor, her knees collecting carpet-burns. She groans. He screams. It's messy. The smell of their sex clings to his fur and the room for days after. It's not that he looks, okay he takes a tiny peek now and then (it's like watching a train-wreck, you don't want to, but you sorta can't stop anyway), but the volume of their tryst is loud enough he doesn't really need to. 

And Shishido'll never be able to close his eyes and not relieve the trauma. 

But, again, in the end, when Hiyoshi has screamed Kiki's name through his orgasm, he presses his lips against the back of her neck and mouths her name again with trembling lips.

He doesn't need to say 'I love you'; it's right there on his face. And when Kiki twines her fingers with his, it's on her face too.

***

After he's sure he's not doing something as stupid as getting his hopes up, Shishido tentatively concludes that it's NOT on Choutarou's face or in his eyes when he's done having sex with Naomi. Them, Shishido never watches, he just _can't_. Sometimes, though, they'll just be done with a round and come walking out of the bathroom or wherever they've been at it and Shishido will catch _the look_ (the I've just had steaming and mind-blowing sex with you-look. You know the one) they share.

Because Mukahi and Oshitari are a lot more kinkier and dirtier, but they still make love.

Because Hiyoshi and Kiki are a lot louder and rougher, but they still make love.

Choutarou is painfully sweet and careful and he makes sure to pleasure Naomi so thoroughly that she's sobbing with it. And he'll hug her and kiss her and caress her with nothing but the tenderest of touches. 

But they still have sex.

***

When Choutarou comes back to take him home (it's the first thing he does after returning), it's to the sight of Shishido jumping up at him, his fur shining and healthy again. And smelling of an excessive amount of cleaning product, everybody's spunk, with a dash of Kiki to go along and he's dying. for. a. bath. Not that anyone but him can tell. 

"Ryou!" Choutarou laughs, burying his face in his fur. 

Shishido wags and licks his face, since he can get away with it and all, hah!

"He looks so good, what did you do?" Choutarou wants to know, kneading his fingers into his pelt. 

Hiyoshi smirks, "I gave him dog-food. He ate it all, too."

Choutarou gives Shishido a _look_.

Who cocks his head and ears, makes his eyes big and shiny and looks back. He's the epitome of cute doggyness and completely innocent. 

During the walk home Shishido takes care to dive into the first stretch of mud he finds, rolling around. Slack-jawed, Choutarou stares disbelievingly at his filthy pet, while Shishido does the cute doggyness epitome thing again and thinks to himself that operation bath-time has been a success. 

So he's in bath and foam is everywhere. On him, on Choutarou, on the ground and even on the ceiling. Smiling, Choutarou massages the soap (special dog brand that won't sting his eyes) into his hair. In the background the television plays some well known opening theme from a drama series that Naomi likes to watch. He can't quite bring himself to care that he's in for another sleepless night. Not when Choutarou's big hands are itching at the right spot, _oh yes don't stop right there and a bit harder_ , and his tail is wagging hard enough to splash water and suds all over Choutarou's shirt. 

"Oh very funny," he says, peeling the wet thing over his head and tossing it into the laundry basket. His hair sticks up funnily. He dunks his arms into the bath and brings them up with his hands cupped. The mountain of suds is dropped over his head and Choutarou's lips quirk, "what about that?"

Psh, lame. That's nothing. Shishido braces himself and starts to shake his drenched fur out. With a howl, Choutarou brings up an arm to protect himself, but with the other arm he points the shower-head at Shishido, blasting him full on. After that it gets only better. Or wetter, however you want to look at it. Shishido leaps up from bath, bringing a sheet of water with him, and lands right into Choutarou's lap. The shower-head falls out of his hand as he catches Shishido and it starts spraying in all directions. Choutarou goes "Oh damn," grabs it, but turns it toward Shishido anyway. But the door is open a crack and Shishido, trailing fat drops everywhere, runs into the living room. 

Naomi peeks with a bewildered look over the back of the couch, just as Choutarou pounces on Shishido with a towel. They struggle, Shishido wet and wriggling and occasionally shaking up a storm of droplets while Choutarou hangs on doggedly (no pun intended of course). Choutarou is ruffling the towel, laughing loudly all the time while Shishido lies on his side, panting with exhaustion, but still wagging. Eventually Choutarou pins his tail, squeezing most of the water out of it and then collapses next to him, arms around him with Shishido cocooned in the towel. 

His breathless, completely unrestrained laughter keeps coming. 

Eventually he quiets down enough to finish drying Shishido. But he talks to him and mutters with a grin "Oh yeah, you probably thought that was classic," and laughs some more when Shishido barks. 

Naomi says quietly, "I've never heard you laugh like that before."

***

They don't have sex that night.

Maybe they're tired and sore from doing it two weeks non-stop.

***

It takes three days of Shishido refusing his dog-food. 

It takes three days of Choutarou calling Hiyoshi and asking if there's a magic word to it or something because Ryou's still not eating and he could starve!

It takes three days of Shishido whining plaintively every time Choutarou eats something or pops something in his mouth.

On the fourth day Choutarou makes him Château-brian. 

***

On the fifth day they're having dinner (fried fish) when Naomi sets down her chopsticks and says softly, "Choutarou, this is not working out."

"Eh?" Choutarou says.

_Eh?_ Shishido thinks.

Naomi, eyes too big and shiny, stares at her plate.

Setting down his chopsticks, too, Choutarou asks, "W-what do you mean?"

Her hands twist over and over in her lap. Her eyes are too big. She keeps them open, not risking to blink and spill the tears that shine there. 

_What the hell is going on,_ Shishido wonders. 

"Naomi," Choutarou presses softly. 

Biting on her lip and breathing quickly, she starts to say, "I love you, Choutarou-"

"Me-"

"No!" Her voice goes high and rough. Choutarou leans back, shocked. Calmer, she goes on, "No. You don't. You think you do, but you don't. You try very hard and maybe I'm stupid to let you go when maybe the only thing you need is time. But if time is not enough for you to love me, I won't be able to let you go anymore if I stay any longer with you. And I can't- I-" She shakes her head and looks away. 

Heavy silence settles over all. Shishido thinks wildly, this is too personal, too raw. As quiet as possible he pads into the kitchen, giving them their privacy even though nobody pays attention to him, the dog, right now. 

That doesn't mean he can't still hear every word. His hearing is just too sharp. 

Choutarou is saying, voice strangled, "I don't understand."

Shishido can smell the salt of Naomi's tears all the way into the kitchen. He can imagine her smiling sadly when she answers, "That's just it. You don't."

***

Thus ends the fifth of Choutarou's relationships. 

Shishido glosses them all over in his mind, they're just one big soup of bouncing breasts and batting eyelashes, but in reality he remembers every single one of them. And it's totally uncool how he can tell exactly just how long Choutarou's been with either of them. To the day. Lame, yes, but there it is. 

Naomi is the shortest relationship he's had.

Somehow she's the only one Shishido feels sorry for. Much of that has to do with the fact that the previous four girlfriends had a personality and brain-capacity of a shoe-box, of course. Feelings within him war with relief and indignation. It's indignation on Naomi's part, too. Something among the lines of 'How the hell could Choutarou fuck this up?' now he finally found a girl Shishido didn't want to run over with a truck and he _loses_ her. 

He's not sure he entirely gets what Naomi wanted from Choutarou or what it is she apparently felt was lacking. Of course Shishido is biased because he might just _die_ if Choutarou ever did even half of the things to him which he did with Naomi. Important point: if he does them to Shishido when he's not a _dog_ , thanks very much. 

And it's not that Choutarou doesn't try. He does, very hard and with his whole damn soul behind it. So yeah, sure, he's awful at talking about love and all that mushy stuff, but he's a guy. Nobody but Oshitari is into deep conversations and declarations of love. And okay, it's maybe a bit of a mood killer that Choutarou has yet to return an equal response to a profession of the Big Three. But, on the other hand, I-love-you's should only be said or returned when you're ready for it. So why didn't Naomi give him some time?

Naomi also said that he needed to heal his heart first before he'd be able to give it away again.

The hell? Why can't girls just come clear and say what they want? No, they must dance around the subject, keep it it nice and covered in feminine mystery. And as highly as Shishido thinks of Naomi, she doesn't differ from the other four on that point. 

So, no, Shishido doesn't get it. 

And Choutarou doesn't get it either. 

"That's _it_ , I give up," he exclaims all of a sudden two days later, "I don't know what more they can want."

And then, surprise, surprise, he puts his face in his hands and groans, "I wish Shishido-san was here, he'd know what to do."

Shishido wuffles a snort. _Yeah, right, I've had a grand total of three sexual encounters, none of them which qualify for a relationship. Also, I'm gay, so I don't think my advice will really work on the ladies and all._

Not to mention that all three of those experiences were such stunted efforts that they are hardly _worthy_ of the term 'encounters'.

The first was the most humiliating. It was a girl in his second year of high school, not long after he knew for sure Choutarou was straight. It was horrible for him, it was horrible for her and it took ages until Shishido managed to do his manly duty and come. Afterward he tried to get her to come too, but she was too dry for him to do it with his hands and, selfish though it may sound, putting his mouth there turned his stomach so bad that he didn't dare. His cock had ached for days after, from the continued forced friction and while the girl had smiled at him in school the next day, she hadn't invited him over to study again. Ever. 

The third was some guy he met at the tennis store he always frequented. One day he came to pick up some more canisters of balls and there he was, a year older than Shishido and freaking gorgeous. Shishido, at times, has the social IQ of a plastic spoon and is a complete disaster when it comes down to flirting, so it took him a good half year of shopping there and muttering one-word answers before it dawned on him that there was no need to hide his face in fear of the other seeing and _knowing_ , because it was mutual. And yeah, a lot of sex followed, but that's all he has to say about it. 

The second was his first same-sex encounter and the most memorable. That was when he realized that yes, he might be a faggot and gay and wrong and unnatural, but he wasn't the only one. It happened in a way he'd never seen coming, either. 

_It was during his third year of high school, and Choutarou and him were playing doubles together again in official tournaments._

_Their opponent was Rikkai Dai Fuzoku. Back then Kirihara was already out of commission, but he was there anyway, yelling "Crush them senpais!" and wincing when he flailed too hard, jogging his broken body._

_Back in the Doubles 1 slot, Shishido and Choutarou faced the much feared Niou-Yagyuu pair. Undefeated. Unrivaled._

_Head high Shishido said, "We're undefeated, too, Choutarou, we'll crush them."_

_"Ah, sorry, did you say something, Shishido-san?" his partner asked with an apologetic smile, because he was too busy waving at his cheering girlfriend in the stands._

_Needless to say Shishido was off his game for the rest of the match._

_But._

_He wasn't the only one._

_The first time Shishido encountered Yagyuu's laser-beam, it was with barely the tip of his racket he caught it, but he did get it. Fast serves and especially the returning of them were, after all, his speciality. It started their opponents bad and even though his return was weak at best, it landed right before a wide-eyed Niou's feet._

_During the switching of courts, he heard Yagyuu mutter, "Niou-kun, you have to pay attention, that return was nothing."_

_Niou said, "Puri," and pursed his lips as Yagyuu smiled at a girl bouncing and clapping her hands at him._

_And when Choutarou, too, beamed once again at his girlfriend during Shishido's service game, he faulted. Twice._

_"What's the matter Shishido-san?" Choutarou asked. It was not his habit to fault on a serve._

_"Stop flirting and start focussing!" He growled, red in the face and knowing the blame was on his shoulders._

_Choutarou pointedly eyed the ball being picked up by the net and turned around again._

_Two games later he was facing Niou at the net. Even though both sides were not giving an inch, but not getting one either, Niou smirked at Shishido and Shishido raised an eyebrow back._

You too, eh?

Yeah.

_It was after a grueling tie-break and a great heap of luck on their side that they managed to scrape a win._

_Hyoutei lost anyway._

_The teams were packing their bags and stuffing warm water-bottles into them and other tennis-gear. The stink of teenage-boy permeated the air along with the greasy smell of the food stalls. Fanning his face with his cap, Shishido asked, "Want to go for ramen, Choutarou?"_

_It was tradition between the two of them. They always went for ramen after an official tournament, full stop._

_But that day Choutarou ran fingers through his sweaty hair and held up the other hand linked with that of his girlfriend's, saying, "Ah, no, sorry Shishido-san. I kind of promised-"_

_"Never mind," he snapped back, throat closing up, and turned to go._

_However, he came upon Rikkai's Niou and Yagyuu, having much the same exchange._

_"I'm sorry Niou-kun, but not today," Yagyuu said, as he struggled with an armful of excited girlfriend._

_Niou swallowed, "But we always go."_

_"Maybe tomorrow, Niou-kun," and Yagyuu waved and left._

_Taking a deep breath, Niou picked up his bulky tennis bag. "Puri," he said under his breath._

_"Yeah, tell me about it," Shishido agreed._

_Somehow the two of them ended up doing it._

_The park grew deserted as everybody left. In the red-purple of the oncoming night, stars started to wink into view. Their feet took them to a secluded stand of trees with a stretch of grass between them; a small clearing._

_One moment they were walking together, heads down and lost in though. The next they were grabbing at each other and kissing._

_It was hardly romantic and Shishido didn't even_ know _Niou, didn't even know if he would be able to stand him if he got to know him better. But when Niou kissed him, hot and demanding, it hardly mattered. Both of them were hurt and lonely and there was no one else. Yet it wasn't an entirely bitter affair. Clumsy; yes._

_Their mouths broke apart briefly when Shishido legs went out from under him as he tripped over a root. He took Niou down with him and their combined weight knocked Shishido senseless for a moment. When he was done gasping for breath, he could see Niou gazing intently down at him before they kissed. Their mouths met again in hot, sliding and sticky kisses, tasting of sweat and Shishido's chewing gum (which he accidentally swallowed when they'd hit the ground). Having both the sensation of a slick mouth falling open against his on a groan and the pure aggressiveness and force behind everything didn't even start to compare to being with a girl._

_His heart went overdrive when they yanked at each other's shirts of and hands dove under waistbands._

_It was beyond strange to do this to another boy and it made him uneasy and a bit faint, but when Niou's head dropped, softly, in the crook of his neck, mouth open on a silent scream against his skin, Shishido just... let go. The only thing he was interested in was seeing if he could actually make Niou scream if he squeezed a bit harder or moved his hand just so, fingers pressing down... It did. So he did it again and again so Niou had to clutch at him, nails raking down his arms, to stop from shaking._

_And when Niou did it to him, well, he might have bitten down hard enough to leave set of teeth marks._

_Occasionally one of them would hiss, either in pleasure or in pain, since neither of them had any clue what they were doing._

_Shishido accidentally knocked Niou in the eye with elbow ('Oh crap, I'm so sorry' and 'Piyo')._

_And Niou kneed Shishido very close to his balls when he curled up on himself as he came ('Sorry' and 'Totally uncool')._

_Eventually they were on their side when they did it, Shishido's chest pressed up against Niou's back, mouth open on his shoulder. Pressing dry, soothing kisses against Niou's jaw, lips stinging with their combined sweat, Shishido pressed forward. The sheer, hot, tight heat, made it hard for him to stop and give the other a moment, whose noises where very much pain. He managed, sobbing a bit with the pleasure and agony of it. Niou's hand curled against his hip and Shishido twined their fingers together until Niou's sharps staccato pants evened out. Shifting a bit they managed to find each other's mouths again, sliding together with teeth clacking and lips shaking. He was barely hanging on when Niou finally nodded for him to go on. His fingers then slipped over Niou's belly and curled around his cock again. And began to move. His whole body swam with pleasure, his body going into a rhythm that was pure primal instinct, with pressure growing and growing and growing until it exploded, blinding, in white, numb, heat._

_It was over before they knew it._

_Despite the pain, Niou must've come too, Shishido's hand was covered in his spunk, and he recalled vaguely Niou's body arching into his while he bit down, again. Leaving a mark, now on the other shoulder, again. Oops._

_Panting together, they stared up at the starry expanse of night. Then, awkwardly, they dressed in silence. Niou hissed when he moved._

_Swallowing, Shishido brushed his sticky fingers against Niou's, belatedly remembering that they were still covered in come, "Sorry. I've never... I didn't want to hurt-"_

_"S'okay," Niou cut him off._

_Feeling awful Shishido pulled his shirt over his head and reached for his bag. He was stopped by Niou's arms sliding around him from behind, wrapping around, hugging him._

_"It was really okay, dumbass," he said, "thanks."_

And that was it.

The last time Shishido saw Niou, they smiled at each other. Yagyuu, standing beside him, had _glared_ at Shishido and cupped Niou's elbow possessively, glasses flashing.

At least one of them got lucky.

***

Some weeks later, they're at Atobe's again. The sweltering heat is getting better and at times it's downright chilly. Shishido's pelt is getting thicker, too. This evening it's quite warm, probably one of the last good days they'll have before autumn's cold misery crashes in with all the finality of a door shutting. 

On the table between them are the most mouth-watering snacks he's ever clapped eyes on. Shishido puts his head on Choutarou's thigh and gives him pleading doggy eyes. 

Choutarou doesn't notice. He's sad and Shishido has yet to figure out why. Can't be Naomi, since that has been over and done with some time ago. Too long, in any account, for Choutarou to get depressed over it now.

Nobody else is eating either. 

Atobe says in a dull voice, "Cake should be here soon."

Listless silence.

Mukahi stirs, "Isn't it a bit weird..." but he stops. 

Choutarou's fingers twitch.

The bell rings and the distraction causes palpable relief. 

Then Jiroh screams, "OH MY GOD!" 

Marui and Jackal struggle with a huge frosted cake. 

Jiroh isn't helping. He is jumping around Marui, flailing his arms, not unlike a hummingbird on acid. 

The cake makes it safely unto the table when Kabaji grabs the back of Jiroh's sweater and lifts him bodily of the ground. Jiroh keeps flailing, making grabby-hands at Marui. 

Shishido thinks that Marui should leave the cake-tasting to Jackal. 

He ignores Jiroh flying towards Marui again when Kabaji releases him and goes to have a peek at the cake. Granted, the cake looks magnificent, decked with fruit and whipped cream. The frosting on top spells something out. He can make out '25', but that's all before Marui says suddenly, "Hey, isn't that Akaya's dog?"

_Oh crap._

He hadn't even thought of that yet.

"Ne, ne, Jackal, take a look, isn't that the one that ran away?" He points a sausage-y finger at Shishido. 

Jackal rubs his chin, "Yeah, I think it is Bunta."

"I knew it. I'm a-"

"GENIUS!" Jiroh shrieks.

Marui ignores him. 

Choutarou goes, "Huh?"

Marui explains, "Kirihara found a dog in the school's tennis ball shed nearly a year ago. He kept it for a while, but it ran away one day. I helped putting up 'lost' flyers with him," he eyes Shishido again, "I'm sure it's this one."

Things go downhill from there. 

An hour later Kirihara is there with his two girls (how they've grown!) and there's a loud exclamation of "KURI-CHAN!".

He experiences his first Kirihara group hug. 

It isn't so bad.

And it's sorta cute to see Kirihara sniffle and blubber and mutter, "I thought you'd died, Kuri-chan. Why'd ya run away?" 

_You have to ask?_ Shishido thinks with a mental eye-roll. Also, it never ceases to amaze him how much of a big kid Kirihara is. 

He turns to Choutarou, "Where did ya find him?"

Choutarou flushes guiltily and his fingers twine so tightly in the chain of his cross that it pinches his skin. "I kind of nearly killed him when I hit him with my car," he replies, eyes darting to Shishido and away again. 

Kirihara's jaw drops low enough that birds could nest in it. 

"He's alright now!" Choutarou assures him, "Right, Ryou?"

Shishido barks.

"Ryou?"

"Had to name him," Choutarou smiles. 

"We called him Kuri, cause of his fur," Kirihara supplies, being Mr. Obvious again. 

The Kirihara spawn crawls all over Shishido, giving him sticky kiddy kisses on his face and his nose. He might do something as uncool as lick them back. They're cuter than he remembered. Cuter, at any rate, than Kazuki-chan. 

Choutarou is making puppy-dog eyes of his own. His voice wavers when he asks, "Do you- do you want him back?"

Kirihara goes, "Eh?"

"Ryou, eh, Kuri, well you know. Since he was yours," Choutarou tries to clarify. 

Shishido dislodges the devil offspring, gently mind you, and goes to sit on Choutarou's feet. The twins turn to Marui and shrill, "Uncle Bunta!" leaving him in peace. Sure he likes Kirihara well enough and all, but he's not Choutarou. 

His stomach roils while watches Marui duck behind Jackal, using him as a human shield. Clearly, he's no stranger to Kirihara's girls. 

Both he and Choutarou let out relieved sigh (perfect synchro! Take that Golden Pair!) when Kirihara says, "Ah, no. When Kuri ran away my girls were so crushed that we got a new dog after three months. We've called her Kuri-chan the Second and it's a girl." 

Kirihara is unoriginal and he's a sap. Shishido is deeply, deeply unsurprised. 

Fingers caressing him absentmindedly, Choutarou answers, "Ah, okay. I love Ryou, I was afraid of giving him up."

Whoa, it's been a while since cosmic irony got so up close and personal in Shishido's face. Stomach one knot of mushy and warm feelings, he licks Choutarou's hand. It's a good thing that dogs can't tear up and sniffle, because he might just do that. 

The tender moment is broken when Marui interrupts loudly, "Akaya, this tensai requires some help here." 

Kirihara rescues him from his daughters. Kabaji once again rescues him from Jiroh. 

"We should be going, we're interrupting, aren't we?" Jackal says, "Come Akaya. Bunta?"

"Ah, sorry," Kirihara exclaims, looking at the cake with awe. Marui puffs up his chest with pride. "Whose birthday is it?"

The only sound to fill the pressing silence that follows the next couple of heartbeats is the hungry gurgling of Marui's stomach. 

Kirihara suddenly mutters, "Oh."

And after a beat, Shishido goes 'oh', too. 

It must be the 29th of September. 

His birthday. 

Mukahi mutters, "Yeah, it's a bit weird and all... and yeah." 

He sniffles. Oshitari pats his back. Marui stuffs a stick of gum in his mouth.

Not knowing what to think, Shishido looks with his impaired vision at his old team mates. He's doesn't get it, not really. He is part of the team, okay, but he never has had any idea that they were this... attached to him. Mukahi and him may be friends after a fashion, but they fight like cat and dog (again, no pun intended). Atobe and him are always on each other's cases and that is on good days. Hiyoshi resents him for getting back on the regulars and Shishido resents Hiyoshi for not being kicked off at all after losing to Echizen (admittedly, they're adults now, so they're okay with it, fine whatever). Kabaji hardly says anything more than 'Usu' to him. Oshitari tends to freak him out at times. Shishido might be gay (not openly) but Taki is a _Queen_ and his flower arranging, nail filing, leg waxing and eyebrow plucking drives Shishido mad. So yeah, that leaves Choutarou and Jiroh. No need to say what he thinks about Choutarou and he always has been fond of Jiroh. 

And, yeah, Shishido knows that his temperament isn't always a walk in the park and that he has a big mouth that sometimes moves before he thinks. He forgets birthdays and is insensitive and stubborn. And he isn't very kind and he always wants his way, so, yeah okay, in short, he's not the easiest person to get along with. He's mature enough to get _that_.

So why this mushy business? 

If it was Choutarou who was missing, he'd understand. Because Choutarou is _nice_. 

Shishido is not. 

He knows this. But he didn't know they all like him enough, despite his not being nice and all, to _miss_ him and _celebrate_ his birthday. 

Confused and happy and touched all at once, he whines a bit. Everybody turns to look at him (group synchro! Take that Seigaku!).

"It's okay, Ryou," Choutarou murmurs at him. 

"Say," Oshitari speaks up suddenly, "when did you say that dog showed up?"

Shishido tenses.

Kirihara blinks and answers, "Right after the Christmas holidays. He was hiding in the tennis shed."

"Didn't Shishido teach at the same school as you?" he asks.

"Yeah?" Kirihara answers, but makes it a question all the same.

The others catch on. Everybody stares at him, Choutarou included. 

Atobe is doing his Insight pose. At (in five days) twenty-five it looks sort of stupid. Then he drawls, "It's awfully coincidental that Ryou the dog showed up right after our Ryou went missing, hmm?"

Kirihara's head is whipping back and forth between Shishido on the ground and the cake on the table. It's a small miracle he doesn't give himself a whiplash. "No way," he breathes.

Popping a bubble, Marui says, "Wait a minute.... you guys don't honestly think that..." he looks at Shishido and raises his eyebrows. Then he explodes in gales of laughter. 

After a beat everybody follows. 

"Shishido... a dog," huffs Mukahi.

"Stupid really," snickers Jiroh.

"Can't believe we almost..." Atobe huffs. 

"That's just plain crazy," Kirihara cackles. 

"Hyoutei is full of nut-cases," Marui says to Jackal and blows another bubble.

Shishido hangs his head as he lacks a hand to smack his forehead with.

***

Besides getting to hear that Choutarou _loves_ him that day and realizing that his team sorta likes him, too, Shishido gets another present. 

At first it doesn't feel like it. There's some off-season fireworks late that evening and usually Shishido loves fireworks. There's nothing better than seeing the streaks of the arrows as they shoot into the sky and have them exploding into blooms red and green and white, after images burning into his eyes for the rest of the night. It's even better that it happens on his birthday and the human part wants to go to the window and gaze up at the sparkling streams of colors that light up the evening. 

Dog doesn't like fireworks. At all. 

Shishido cowers behind the couch. 

He shivers under the table.

He whines in the bathtub. 

Choutarou murmurs at him and carries him to the couch and tries to calm him, which helps a bit. 

But then he goes to sleep and Shishido lies in the dark and whimpers in fear. He's ashamed of himself and he can rationalize until he turns purple, but the dog body he is in now is afraid no matter what. And he's not a separate entity of it, no, it becomes very clear that he _is_ the dog and _he's_ afraid of the loud bangs and fizzing noises. 

With no idea how long he lies there or what time it is, Shishido yelps in fear when Choutarou suddenly looms up next to him, wearing a set of loose pajama's . When he realizes it's _safe warmth protection_ he curls against Choutarou's shins. 

"Ryou, hush, don't be afraid," Choutarou whispers, "I'm here, the nasty bangs won't get you."

Any other time Shishido would resent Choutarou talking like that to him, as though he's a baby. And it's not much different, being a dog, being so dependent. So he's not in his right mind when he feels better when Choutarou does it and he isn't in his right mind _at all_ when he doesn't spontaneously combust when Choutarou carries him into his bedroom. And tucks him under the sheets with him. 

Curling against him, Shishido disappears almost completely under the blankets, burrowing, with only his nose sticking out and the blanket just high enough that he can peer around the room. Choutarou watches him, lying on his side, with Shishido tucked in the crescent his torso makes with his knees slightly pulled up. A heavy arm drapes over his back, fingers toying in the fur where his hand cups his shoulder. 

Between flashes of green and red and gold, the room falls into blue shadows. Occasionally a shiver wracks his body as another explosion bursts into the sky, but it's sort of breathtaking to see how they illuminate the plains and angles of Choutarou's face, skin lighting up in random colors and making his big dark eyes shine. He talks low assurances into his ears, sweet half-promises and brushes his lips across his head. 

Time between the bangs grows longer and the colorful light floods the room less frequently. Choutarou's words start to slur and his eyelids start to droop, lashes fanning against his cheekbones. 

Shishido gets his mind back and the bone-deep shudders cease. In the dark he patterns his breathing with the person next to him, deep and steady, drowning in the scent that is uniquely Choutarou and which permeates everything in the bed. 

His lids grow heavy, too.

Choutarou mouths 'Ryou' as he slides further into his dreams and Shishido follows right in his wake.

***

Choutarou and Hiyoshi get him, after an hour of negotiating and pleading and pushing and pulling, into the car. All but crawling into Hiyoshi's lap, who sits in the back with him, Shishido curls himself into a ball and pants with fear until Hiyoshi says, "Choutarou, crank the window open, would you?"

"Isn't it a bit cold?" Choutarou asks, but he presses the button anyway and the window slides open noiselessly. If Shishido was not in his dog body, he'd appreciate Choutarou's freaking fancy car, but he's too busy whimpering and being an uncool canine. Lucky the movie-star dog would be ashamed of this behavior, the tells himself. It doesn't help.

Arm curling under his front legs, Hiyoshi drags him further unto his legs and towards the window. Choutarou's curious frown reflects in the rear view mirror. Shishido thinks wildly that Hiyoshi is trying to murder him by tossing him out through the window and DO something Choutarou! Shishido's gonna die and he's sitting there while the wind is already whipping up his ears and pulling at his fur and... and hey, that kinda feels _nice_.

Next thing he knows his head is sticking out of the window and his mouth is open, tongue flapping in the air. Drool drips out of his mouth in streamers and hits the car behind him, who turns on his windshield wipers. Which is kinda gross, but come on, this is _obviously_ what life is all about!

This is much faster than he could ever run and with the wind pulling almost painfully at his ears and his tongue going dry with it and, ew, okay, collecting bugs and it's amazing!

_Really_ awesome.

It's over too fast. 

Choutarou has his hands on his hips and jerks his head at him to come out, "Come, Ryou. We've got to go!"

"First we didn't get him in and now we can't get him out," Hiyoshi mumbles with an eye-roll. 

As Shishido hops out and Choutarou clicks the leash to him, it starts to drizzle. Besides nitrous touch it gives everything, the rain both intensifies the smells and blends them together. Overlaid by it all is the smell of his own damp pelt that fills his nose with, well, wet dog. They walk the neighborhood, which is alarmingly familiar somehow, until they get to a small park. He knows these smells. He knows these streets. He knows this park. It's right near the school he teaches at! Or used to, at least.

It's confirmed when there's a shrill chorus of "KURI-CHAN," and he's once _again_ covered in Kirihara's devil offspring. He's pinned to the muddy sand under their combined weight, stubby arms petting him all over and a bit too roughly. 

So that was where they were going to. Kirihara comes towards them and, the gods have mercy on them all, has a third kid strapped to his chest. Miyami must have popped it out recently then. It seems Kirihara is aiming on raising a small army of mini-Kirihara's, probably intending to have them take over the world with tennis. Sounds about right. 

"Yo," he greets them, cupping a hand over the baby's head even though the clear plastic umbrella keeps them dry, "it's cool that you didn't mind doing this. The girls still can't get over the first Kuri-chan, they miss him. It's because he was more tolerant than the one we have now." 

One of Kirihara's kids pulls his tail, while the other wrings his ears. He looks at Choutarou, thinking, _this_ is what we came all this way for? 

Choutarou's lips twitch. Hiyoshi takes a picture with his mobile phone. Shishido hates his life.

"Speaking of which," Kirihara mumbles to himself, "Kuri-chan, girl, where are you? Here girl!"

Shishido can smell her before she arrives. 

Oh. 

Fuck.

No.

This is so _not_ on. 

Somehow he jumps into Choutarou's arms. Arms full, Choutarou blinks down in bewilderment, and the drops that collect on the rim of the hood of his jacket, drip into Shishido's eyes. He makes a strangled noise and tries to wriggle closer, preferably into Choutarou's coat. He whimpers. 

"What's wrong?" Choutarou asks and puts him on the ground again, to Shishido's great protest. 

Kuri-chan the second wags at him. 

Shishido strains at the leash, away from her. Barely, just barely, he keeps his wits to stop himself from, from, oh god, sniffing her butt and and, OH GOD, having a _go_ at her. 

The three men watch him flail and cry and growl with bemusement. 

Eventually Hiyoshi asks, "She in heat?"

"Eh?"

Hiyoshi raises and eyebrow.

"Oh!" Kirihara looks at Kuri-chan the second, who trots towards Shishido, who runs the other way, steadily wrapping the leash around Choutarou's legs as the movement is reversed. 

STAY AWAY! Shishido growls at her.

_Don't you want to-_

NO!

Kirihara puts her on the leash, too, and tells his twins to walk with her to the end of the path and back, but to stay in sight! With Kuri-chan the second in tow, the children walk off. As people often tend to do with twins, they're both outfitted in the same white and red polka-dot parkas and frog-faced rain-boots and both have two ponytails high on top of their heads, secured with ribbons matching the parka. Kuri-chan the second throws a longing and sultry (a dog that flirts!) look over her shoulder at him.

Shishido cowers, this whole terrible reality-check causing permanent trauma to his pride. She might be far enough to not commit acts bestiality in his life-time, but the urge to randomly hump things is not much better. Especially when one of the prominent options is someone's leg, which includes _Choutarou's_ leg and if he does _that_ , it's over. He'll jump in front of a train or something or eat a porcupine, but no way he's humping Choutarou's leg. 

This is definitely the low of his life.

"He -ah- seems really affected," Choutarou says sheepishly.

_Oh screw you,_ Shishido thinks miserably. 

"Oi," Kirihara's index finger pokes the air as he usually does when he has an idea. From personal experience both as a man and a dog, Kirihara's ideas are never _good_. They usually lead to mayhem and deep distress for all parties involved.

This is not an exception, "We could breed them!"

Shishido puts both his paws over his snout and hides his face in the mud. 

"The kids would like a nest of Kuri-chans," he continues, "we can give them away after." 

Choutarou looks down at him, "So, eh, Ryou, do you want to..." he trails of. 

Shishido growls at him

Hiyoshi snickers.

"She seems nice," Choutarou points out, looking at Kuri-chan. 

Shishido growls harder.

With an apologetic smile he turns back to Kirihara, "I don't think he wants to."

Kirihara scratches at his curls with the hand that's not holding the umbrella, "Why not, Ku- er, Ryou? She's a girl and she's nice and pretty."

Shishido, sticking to what seems to help, growls louder.

Shrugging, Kirihara says to Choutarou, "Maybe your dog is gay."

Shishido hangs his head.

This sucks.

  



	4. Chapter Four

**A Dog's Life**

When they go walking, it's under bare skeleton trees and over a thick carpet of leaves so rotten they're a cake of deep brown. Their breath makes bright silvery plumes in the cold air. Choutarou swaddles his face up to the tip of his nose in a cream scarf with red patterns on it. It matches the red of the tips of his ears. 

Routine patterns Shishido's days. Everything seems about as normal as it can get when you're a man-turned-dog. 

At least, Shishido is pretty sure everything is fine. It's just that the routine and the hours he spends at home when Choutarou's working blend into such amalgam of sameness, that at times he can't quite remember what they might've had for dinner the other day. Or he'll take a certain turn in the park and Choutarou'll say, "We did this one yesterday, Ryou. Why don't we take the other route today?"

It's small things. 

Nothing that bothers Shishido. He can still do the sums and make out words on paper. He can still translate movie dialogues he knows by heart into English. His mind isn't going. 

The first big clue he gets that something is, in fact, not quite as it should be is that one day there's a new framed photograph on Choutarou's desk. Choutarou has left for work hours ago; he's alone. Carefully he hops onto the leather chair, minding his nails, and peeks at it. At first it causes him some confusion. There's a man in the picture that looks a lot like him, but a knit cap and a voluminous scarf make him doubt. The man has his arms around the neck of a dog, one that looks sublimely happy. It's a rather big dog, too. So it can't be Mochi, Shishido's own ancient dog, who resides at his parents'. 

His stomach does a weird swoop when he figures out that not the _man_ is him, but the dog is. Which can only mean that the man is Sho. His brother. 

Shishido is in the picture as a dog and his very own aniki is hugging him. And he can't remember a thing of it. 

The hours until Choutarou comes home again are spent with each minute ticking by agonizingly slow and increasing the anxiety in his stomach. At his feet the picture lies amid shards of glass. Bloody paw-prints are stamped a thousand times over one other, caused by relentless pacing. Panic settles as a tight, cold lump in the center of his body. 

Why can't he remember it? 

If they had gone to see his family, Shishido would remember. It's not like forgetting what they ate yesterday or which tour they made on their walk. He would remember, he's _sure_ of it. It would be the first time in over far more than half a year that he would have seen them, he would know it, he'd remember it, he wouldn't forget it. 

Finally Choutarou comes home. Shishido's paws are numb. His barks are wild and sharp. Choutarou exclaims at the blood and wants grab him and look for the injuries. With a jump he lands right in the mess he's made, glass skittering in all directions as he lands. The sharp tang of his own blood makes him drool. He noses the picture and looks at Choutarou and wills him to understand. 

He whines at him and nudges the picture and stares at Choutarou, thinking, _explain it please, tell me please, when? When?_

Looking miserable and shaking his head vaguely, Choutarou says gruffly, "I don't know what you're trying to tell me, Ryou. Do you want to go back?"

Shishido whines, fear making the noise pitched and sounding as though he's in pain. 

Choutarou sighs and his hands make to reach out again. Shishido steps backward and a shard of glass goes 'ping' under his paw as it snaps. "Ryou," he breathes, "please, come here, boy. You're- you're hurting yourself. We'll go back to Shishido-san, if that's what you want. Okay? We just went last weekend, maybe I can call to ask for this Saturday. Now please, come here."

Trembling all over with shock, Shishido goes into Choutarou's outstretched arms. He's picked up and they go to see the vet.

Afterwards Shishido burrows against Choutarou in bed, one of his paws stitched.

If they go to visit his aniki that weekend, he doesn't remember either.

***

From there on, it goes downhill _fast_. 

What is a day or two, turns into days and turns once even into a week.

Whole stretches of nothing. 

Every morning he's _there_ , he makes sure to check the calendar on Choutarou's fridge. It has birthdays, special dates and appointments marked on it. Choutarou's organized like that. Also, he crosses the days out as they go past. Imprinting the date in his mind, Shishido takes to staring at it hours on end, forcing and branding those digits into his memory. 

That's how he figures out that he isn't forgetting things, but he disappears instead. Gone. 

Because he really does remember the last date and what they ate that day or what they watched on television. But then one morning he'll race off to stare at the calendar and that day is not yesterday, it was _four_ days ago. Nothing remains of those three intermitting days. It's just that his human mind seems to shut off, but the Dog goes on. 

He's fading away, somehow. 

October rushes by, slipping away in more _gone_ days than in _here_ days.

Less _Shishido_ days and more _Dog_ days.

Shishido panics. 

One day at the park, barking and whining, he starts on the first kanji of his name. That's when he feels it. Barely one stroke is finished, tremulous and misshapen in the hard, frozen sand, and he starts to _sink_. A bit like being sedated and not at all like it at the same time. It's not that he loses control and has to watch helplessly as Dog takes over. 

He _becomes_ Dog. 

Painlessly he slides away into instincts and impulses, into a world of needs and reflexes. Everything becomes simple. Everything becomes impulse and reaction. Choutarou is the Master and most often is the one he reacts _to_. When he has reacted, he forgets. 

Other things stay with him. The memory of being with Sho, being touched by him, are gone. But one day Choutarou pulls on a pair of converse shoes that he must have worn when visiting, and the smell, the essence that is Sho, comes back to Shishido. Not what he did or said, but vague emotions of happiness and comfort, of belonging and knowing he is submissive to this person, this man, who is higher in the pack. 

He doesn't come _back_ in time to finish writing his name. He doesn't even think Choutarou noticed that carefully disturbed sand. 

Next time they go there, wind and rain and hundreds of footprints have erased it. It was five days ago. 

He tries again.

The Master calls.

Dog leaves.

***

Today Shishido tries 'Help'. 

When he lies next to Choutarou that night, he can't recall if he completed it.

***

Choutarou isn't stupid. Naïve, yes, at times, though less now with age. Stupid; never.

Frowning, his eyes follow Ryou everywhere. He knows something is wrong. He worries. Ryou was abnormally smart for a dog. 

He was _special_.

Now he's just a dog.

***

Their friends believe him when he says something is wrong with Ryou. Ryou pants and wags his tail. He tries to dig in the frozen dirt. He sniffs crotches. 

He eats the bowl of dog-food Choutarou gives him. 

For every day of the coming week Atobe fixes an appointment for him with famous dog psychiatrists or scientists who specialize in canine behavior. 

All of them say that Ryou is a healthy, happy dog, maybe a bit smarter than most. 

Nobody believes him when Choutarou insists he used to count and could answer random questions with one or two barks. 

It was a fluke, they say.

Ryou is a perfectly normal dog.

***

Shishido wakes up with his rear hurting. Pain sears and burns all through his hind leg. Through the sedation he manages to lift his head and check. Big stitches pull the skin tight together just over his hip, the fur around it is shorn away and faintly orange with ointment. 

Vaguely he wonders how long he was out. 

It must have been long. His eyes detect too many small adjustments in the room around him. There's presents on top of the closet, perfectly wrapped with festive bows on top. New smells cling to every surface and his coat. Frost makes a delicate filigree on the windowpane. The moon is painfully bright, the night clear and sharp and dark, studded with pinpricks of stars. He's in the middle of Choutarou's bed on thick, expensive sheets he doesn't recognize. New. There's starch still faintly clinging to the fibers, though they've been washed, he can tell by the smell.

In the living room Choutarou is having a screaming fight with someone on the phone. About him. About barbwire. About something being wrong. About nobody believing. About him losing Ryou.

His ears twitch every-time his name is mentioned, but sedation presses him down heavily. 

He's dying, in a way, Shishido thinks. Soon there'll be no more him, no more Shishido Ryou, who used play doubles at a National level with his partner Ohtori Choutarou and who went to eat ramen with the whole Hyoutei team every other Sunday. Even after they graduated. Even when he started to teach History and only _talked_ about tennis with his colleague, Kirihara Akaya. Who has an older brother named Shishido Sho and has an extraordinarily beautiful mother, even at her age, and a father whose temperament he inherited.

He'll just be Dog.

If he can't remember himself and know himself to be, then he's gone.

It would be as if he'd died.

Choutarou comes in the room and the pure fury and desperation cling to his face for a moment longer, but then it softens. Moonlight bounces of his face and silhouettes his tall frame. He looks at Shishido for a long time. Shishido looks back.

"Ryou?"

It hurts, but he barks anyway. At least, a soft wuffle leaves his snout. The effort leaves the room spinning and the small movement make the stitches scream. 

The bed dips under Choutarou's weight. A heavy hand settles gingerly, softly on his side and stokes down, along with the hair. "I don't know what to do anymore," he whispers. 

He yearns to tell. He aches to explain what has happened, or at least that it's _him_. Before he forgets it completely himself and Dog will be all that's left. 

Breathing hurts, his consciousness swims with chemicals, but he doesn't drift into Dog. The drug won't let him move his legs, only his head a bit. When he does, it pulls his stitches anyway. His breathing grows labored, outlines dance.

With a gentle touch Choutarou presses his head down again, "Don't move too much," his lips say.

Numbly, Shishido looks at him. 

_I love you._

He thinks.

Shishido looks and brands Choutarou's face into his mind as he did with the dates on the calendar. The pale hair that curls a bit, more so when it's wet. The big, dark brown eyes, the heavy lashes that outline them. The nice, straight nose, a bit long. The mouth that Shishido so many times wondered about would feel to kiss. The brows which make him look severe when he's not smiling. The utterly masculine jaw and the high cheekbones. The smooth skin. Choutarou has grown into a man. He knows this face so well, years of watching it have given him a nearly complete catalogue of all the expressions it can make. Some he'll never know, but that doesn't mean he can't read Choutarou's face better than anybody else does. 

Right now there's something on Choutarou's face that he has both been dreading and longing for. 

Eyes locked, Choutarou moves until he's on his side, his body making a curve around Shishido, cupping him against his torso. Ever since his birthday have they slept like this, even though there was nothing for Shishido to be afraid of.

A hand comes up to cup his face, a thumb rubbing back and fort over the soft, small and sleek hairs around his eyes. They lie in silence, but Choutarou's gaze is searching.

_I love you._

He thinks at him again. Their noses are barely apart. They breathe each other's air. Shishido could lie like this forever.

Wetting his lips and voice trembling, Choutarou says softly under his breath, "One bark for yes, two barks for no."

_I love you._

"Shishido-san?" Choutarou asks, his voice full of longing and pure terror.

 

 

 

Dog licks his face. And afterwards the wetness on Master's face, too.

It tastes nice and salty.

***

The noises are loud and hurt his ears. He doesn't know if he wants to wag or not. His tail does, a bit, because Master is here. And if Master is smiling and talking with the other humans and not afraid, then Dog shouldn't be afraid either.

He stays close, anyway.

The cold bites at his sensitive nose and eyes, the tips of his ears hurt a bit. Not that it matters when there's so many smells and lights and noises. The park Master always walks with him in is completely different. Stalls line the sandy trails and the steam that rises from some of the makes him drool. Strings of lights connect the trees and lighten the dark night. Sometimes there's one of those loud, nasty bangs he hates so. He tucks his tail and nearly trips up his Master by crowding against his legs.

"It's alright Ryou," Master says.

He's the tallest of them all, he can protect Dog, there's no part of him that doubts it. 

It's very late. Past last walk time. They should be in the big nest, now. He's not sleepy, though. Not like Master's sleepy friend, who rubs his eyes and yawns and drags his feet. A blanket warps him like a mummy and sometimes flutters like a cape, but he still shivers in the freezing night.

"Stay awake, Jiroh," the man who smells expensive says, "Ore-sama has planned a big firework display to start at five to twelve, you only get to close your eyes until it's over."

The sleepy man answers with a quirk to his lips, "No even to blink?"

"Only when it's absolutely necessary," the expensive man allows, "because Ore-sama will make this the best Christmas party you ever attended! Naa, Kabaji?"

"Usu," the big human grunts, but it sounds a bit like uuuuuss-hick!-uuuuuhh. Dog is quite sure that the drink in the big human's cup is not water.

"Those better be some fucking awesome fireworks, Atobe," the smallest of their pack says. He rubs his hands together, two pairs of mittens on and hops, high, on the spot.

His tall mate puts a hand on his shoulder and stops him from jumping about, "You're making me nauseous, Gakuto," he says. His voice drawls, slow and thickly accented.

"The cold is killing my skin, at this rate I'll need another peeling before the end of the year. Gakuto is right, it had better be amazing," a rather glittery human agrees.

"Thank you, Taki," the small human says again, "although I'm not following the peeling part, but whatever."

Dog man, Masters best friend, smiles at him and feeds him pieces dumpling, greasy and mouth-watering. 

"Not too much, Hiyoshi," Master warns, "I'm afraid he might throw up when the fireworks start."

"Why didn't you just leave him at him home?" the small human's mate asks.

Master's hand touches his head. They're all walking slowly because his leg is still not whole again and it causes Dog to limp. It stings and itches, the threads are gone, but Dog still wants to gnaw at the scabs. Master will tell him not to, if he tries, so he doesn't. Now he always makes sure to keep track of the bush that has coils of the metal with thorns on in it. It's easy to tell where it is because it smells like his blood. He's very weary of it and makes sure to walk between it and Master when they pass it, so it can not scratch Master as it did Dog.

Fingers tickle behind his ear, "I rather have him afraid where I can be with him, then that he's there all alone."

"Ah," dog man says, "okay, one last piece then, here boy."

Dog gobbles it up, licking the grease from his snout. Octopus slithers down into his belly. He hopes he'll get more.

More humans gather. For some reason they try to not press up against their little pack. It has something to do with the expensive human. All of them whisper and point and duck their heads at him as he walks by. Dog doesn't get it, he doesn't see any reason to show such submission to him. Dog doesn't. So why would anybody else? 

The small human darts away and is swallowed by the crowd instantly. 

When he returns, pushing and elbowing his way through the throng of humans which are more like one single-minded mass instead of a whole lot of separate ones, he's holding sticks that spark bright light all around and fizzle. It reminds Dog uncomfortably of the big bangs and strange lights, so he shies away. Master's hand soothes him.

He gives one of the spitting lights to his mate and complains, "I lost my earmuffs somewhere in that madness. Now my ears will freeze and fall of." 

Twirling the fizzing stick, his tall mate answers, "As long as it's just your ears and not your tongue or your co-"

Dog man claps a hand over his mouth, "I really don't need to hear you finish that."

His small mate lets out an indignant "Oi!" as the words sink in.

They all laugh. They are happy and at ease.

"It's nice that we're all together like this, ne?" the sleepy one remarks and he smiles brightly, "When was the last time we did it?"

"Ever since Shi- erm," the glittery man swallows his words, eyes darting to Master.The only word he adds with a mumble is "...birthday." 

Nobody laughs. They are all silent and sad. 

"It's been one year since we heard of him," the sleepy human says, very softly, "I _miss_ him, I hope he's alright somewhere."

The merry and repetitive jingles mix with slow, drawn out, crooning songs. For a while they walk without speaking.

Only Master answers, "Me too."

Licking his hand, Dog tries to get Master to look down and smile at him, but he doesn't. 

The crowd swells, one thick press of bodies all surging towards one direction as it grows closer to midnight. Once, someone steps on Dog's paw and he yips in pain. The pack puts him in the middle, protecting him, the smallest and wounded member. Still, Dog is apprehensive of the cacophony of more than a thousand voices, mixed with the festive holiday music and the clamor from the stall vendors. The rising excitement and anticipation makes Dog want to bark, it's a sensation so infective. 

Other humans come popping out of the surge towards them, exclaiming and enthusiastic. The pack knows them, they smile and wave their hands in response. A man that hisses 'fshuuu' pets him on the head when he thinks nobody notices and then blushes when Master smiles at him. Another that goes "Hoi hoi Ohtori-kun" all but jumps on Master's back. 

The expensive man makes dramatic arm gestures at another human with an austere expression and glasses. He's interrupted mid-arm wave when a tall man comes up and says "Still mada mada, Mr. Boss Monkey," and leaves the expensive man stewing in their wake as they walk of. 

Dog feels as though he has to compete with them somehow, show them they're better and stronger, but for some reason they just walk on. 

On a huge stretch of grass they all crowd together in loose cliques. The trees ringing the perimeter are decorated with thousands of lights like small, frozen fireflies clinging to the bare branches. Vendors patrol the masses, trying to sell some last-minute snacks and trinkets. Mostly everybody stares at the dark starry sky.

"Excellent night for fireworks. Lucky! " someone yells some distance away. 

To their right is a group that mostly consists of the humans their pack interacted with a moment ago. Someone says, "Are you cold, Yuuta? Need my gloves?"

"I'm fine, aniki!" is the snapped response.

"Nfu," another chuckles, "perhaps you'd prefer _my_ gloves, Yuuta-kun?" 

Their own pack talks quietly amongst themselves. "Any minute now," the expensive man says. 

Master's hands are restless on his body, trying to calm him and soothe him, but instead they cause Dog to realize that's something's about to happen that will frighten him. Pressing close to Master's legs, he let's himself take in the soft "Don't be afraid, Ryou, okay? I'm here and the nasty fireworks won't be able to hurt you, good boy, Ryou, you're a good boy."

Dog wags tentatively, but right then something soars up into the sky with a scream that sets Dog's hackles up and explodes so loud and hard he can feel it in the center of his body. Color blooms in the sky, aggressively looming over the mob, but nobody runs. 

"I don't know whether it would have been better to leave him alone at home to deal with it or stay with him," Master shouts over the bangs at his friend, "he's so afraid!"

Making himself small and insignificant, Dog shivers between Master's legs. 

The screaming shrieks swells, more than one at the time, and burst apart in one huge bouquet of color and light, trailing in starry shimmers into the sky. Everything beneath is bathed in ever-changing colors, casting hard contrasts before falling back in shadows until the next round of explosions begins. 

It's during one of these spells when the whole area is alight that Dog notices a frail, old human bundled in more three sweaters, standing a short distance from them. His eyes almost disappear in wrinkles as he gazes intently up at the spectacle, but then, almost in slow-motion, he turns to look at Dog. 

Dog starts to bark and growl, not afraid of the noise and color in the sky anymore. 

He puts himself between Master and the old man, growling his warning, his threat. Drool foams out of his mouth, sticking to his bared teeth as he snarls. It's a bad old man, he knows it, he _feels_ it, very bad. He'll never let the bad human hurt his Master. Dog'll protect him

Somewhere behind him the expensive man's voice yells, "Keep that blasted dog of yours quiet, Ohtori, he's ruining it with that racket of his!"

Master grounds out, "I'm sorry Atobe-senpai!" and tries to quiet him and hush him, hands run through his hair and he asks, "What's wrong Ryou? What's wrong, boy?"

Dog ignores the commands, first soft, then louder. Master doesn't realize that there's a dangerous presence, that he needs to be protected from it. 

Then crowd stars to count, one loud, garbled voice that booms up into the sky, joining with colorful bursts of light. "TEN. NINE. EIGHT. SEVEN-"

Not moving, the old man stares at Dog, not afraid, not backing up as he should be. His snarling is pure venom, the intent to attack and kill if need be real.

"SIX. FIVE. FOUR-"

"Make him stop! Ohtori!"

"I can't!" 

"THREE!"

Snapping at air, besides himself with fury, Dog strains against the leash when the old man turns and disappears in the thick press of bodies. He's leaving and getting _away_ and Dog is one knot of muscle and fur and bones and pure hate and fear. He's getting away and he has to stop him!

"TWO!"

"Stop it Ryou!" 

Fireworks bathe the sky, as round after round is being fired. It's glorious and loud and beautiful but it can't drown out the sheer uproar as the crowd screams, "ONE!

"MERRY CHRISTMAS!!"

Everything goes white.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

***

Somehow Shishido expected being turned into a man again to be a bit more... eventful. You know, a flash, a bang, Alakazam or something. 

There's no flash, no bang, not even a cloud of smoke. No choir of mystic beings announcing his transformation, no white light bathing him. The air doesn't waver with a curse being lifted, nor does it crackle with paranormal energy being released. He doesn't levitate mid-air.

Not even so much as a pop.

One moment he's a snarling canine, Dog, and the next he's Shishido Ryou again and sitting on the freezing ground.

Quite naked, too.

The cold comes as quite the physical shock since he's stark buck naked, which, admittedly, is quite a shock all by itself. Besides _that_ he's not even very confused or disoriented, a bit fuzzy perhaps. 

All that he realizes in a second. It takes his friends a bit longer than a second to cope with the shock themselves. Each one of their jaws is dangling as they gape down at him while their wide and unblinking eyes reflect the fireworks spectacles still raging on above them. 

Shishido wants to say something witty as 'Woof?' maybe, but when he makes to do so he realizes that perhaps his transformation isn't quite as uneventful as he thought. Straining, he tries to say anything, but he _can't_. And neither can he breathe. 

As the last sinks in, the urge to inhale, to have oxygen in his lungs, becomes _urgent_. He struggles, tries, but sucking in air isn't working... because, because... 

Whoa, now everything is more than just fuzzy.

Around him, his friends have recovered. All of them are screaming and exclaiming and vaguely Shishido notices the colorful glitter rebounding of tears on more than one face. It's just an image he absorbs, because the not breathing part is demanding every bit of his attention now.

There's something around his neck, something that... 

Hands refuse to work very well and the well-meant screaming of his friends isn't helping. Starting to go numb, his fingers finally brush against his throat. Something is wedged tight into his flesh, tendons straining under the pressure, skin bulging over the edges of it. Fingers scramble, search, but he can't get them under and lift it up.

Spots, black ones, light ones, start to crowd his vision. Everything swims. His nails claw at the restricting band, digging uselessly in skin and drawing blood. 

He's just about to keel over, hands still frantic when he can hear Hiyoshi, with absurd clarity, shout, "The collar! It's choking him! Shit! Choutarou hold his hands!"

Struggling against the grip on his wrists, because damn it, he _needs_ to get it off and breathe, Shishido thinks, quite randomly, that's it would be pretty damn lame to die now when he's finally human again, because his dog collar is strangling him. Ironic (hello there again) and a bit funny, too, in a morbid way. 

He's being sucked down, rapidly, hands no longer needing to be held since he's unable to do anything but close his eyes. Lids fluttering and a familiar face screaming at him to stay awake, Shishido tries to say 'Choutarou' and he does, although it's a mere gurgle. 

His eyes drop shut.

Just then Hiyoshi gets the catch and yanks the collar away from the hold on his neck. 

Once, twice, he tries, but he just doubles over. 

Someone hits his back hard and blessed, cold air streams into his lungs. The inhale is a shriek as his larynx and wind-pipe clear. 

Curling on his side, in a fetal position, Shishido breathes in, unevenly, each gasp coming with a strangled scream. He keeps that up for a while until the ringing in his ears clear and he can hear Atobe going on, "Breathe, Ryou, breathe. Don't you dare die now! Breathe, nice and even. In. Out. In- no listen to the sound of my voice! In. Out. In. Out. In-"

The second thing Shishido says, his voice hoarse and breathless and barely audible above the din, is "Shut the hell up, Atobe." 

Atobe blinks. 

After a beat everybody chuckles and Atobe mutters, "It's him alright." 

It takes a while before the screaming urge to breathe abates to just a screaming pain in his throat. Not just there, but his whole body throbs with pain, not unlike the first time he woke up to find himself a bit... altered. Struggling some, he gets his head from the ground and still sitting, with a nice view down his naked human body, Shishido starts to laugh. 

Mukahi whispers to Oshitari, voice trembling, "Maybe the lack of air damaged his brain or something?" and to the rest of them he adds, worriedly, "That happens, right?"

Granted, his laughter doesn't really sound like it, it's wheezing gasps with barely any voice behind it. He flaps a hand and snickers "I'm just fine," but he's still not quite in control of his body and he slumps sideways. Arms catch him from behind before he meets the ground again. Shishido lets his head loll backward. Choutarou looks down at him, eyes wide and more than a bit surprised, his cheeks so wet they almost perfectly reflect the fireworks in the sky. "Just fine," Shishido empathizes. 

"Shishido-san?" Choutarou doesn't really sound like he's believing his eyes.

He wants to ask about what happened to just Ryou, but his voice forfeits half-way. 

Choutarou seems to understand, because a smile twitches his lips. 

Next thing he knows Oshitari is there, Jiroh's blanket clutched in his hands. Staring at Choutarou and basking in that half-smile, he quite forgot how cold he was getting. Now though, it makes his aching body throb all the more. Oshitari wraps it around him and Shishido's heart does a strange lurch when Oshitari meets his eyes. He's crying. Seeing that lodges a strange lump in his throat, one that has nothing to do with nearly being strangled. Emotions overwhelm him. He's grateful; to have his mind back, he's scared, too, for a reason he can't really name and the biggest part is one big mushy mess that, when picked apart, might separate into affection and love and friendship and belonging. Even now he doesn't cry, it's just not in his nature, but it's close.

Apparently being a dog dulled the wild, almost violent edge of his human emotions. There's no other explanation for how else he'd been able to take so much from what happened in one stride. That is not to say that a dog's feelings are inferior to that of a human, but certainly less fierce and different. Dogs are awfully practical creatures. If it itches you scratch it. It's that simple.

Seeing Oshitari, of all people, care enough to shed tears over him makes something blessedly human in him want to react to it. 

"I honestly thought you were dead," Oshitari says, as he drags his wrist across his eyes and knocks his glasses askew. 

Even though his voice is barely a hoarse whisper Shishido wants to answer, somehow, but he doesn't get the chance. 

Instead Oshitari smirks and says, all instant-suaveness, "Let's get him inside somewhere, before frostbites settles in and causes him to end up castrated after-all." 

_Jeez, don't remind me,_ Shishido thinks.

***

They go to Hiyoshi's, who lives closest. Atobe stays behind to do the necessary damage-control so that Shishido's miraculous dog-turns-man trick isn't all over the news the next day. 

As a dog, Choutarou has picked him up numerous times. Sure, that was really, really nice and all, but when he does it now, it's all but Shishido can do but control himself. Dog definitely had more simpler, clearer emotions than his human counterpart. He can't even begin to describe how it feels to have Choutarou carry him like you would carry... a bride over the threshold. Part of him is immensely relieved that the pain flares up unbearably, rendering him incapable of even _thinking_ about getting an erection. Instead he just sags a bit against Choutarou's chest, agony stabbing through him with rampant feelings and belayed emotional reactions to situations that have occurred throughout the whole year. Sure, _now_ he's deeply and terribly mortified to have witnessed his friends having sex and having contemplated humping legs. 

He's always been a bit of a prude. 

The wanting to hump legs thing really bothers him. A lot.

What with his emotions one big mess, as though he threw up and left them in a festering puddle for a year's worth, he's fairly relieved to be dropped on Hiyoshi's couch. Everybody, even Choutarou, backs up a bit and gives him a moment. He huddles in Jiroh's blanket, balance belatedly starting to spin. Their voices buzz in the background, all of them trying to figure out what to do, theories about his small miracle running rampant. 

He's not sure how long he sits there. At one point Atobe returns. A bit later Kiki comes back from wherever she was. Some party, probably, since she's wearing a short glittery dress and matching pumps and has one of those fancy clutch-purses in her hand.

Kiki exclaims, "Wakashi! What's going on here?" and after a heavy, shocked pause, she adds, "And... why is there a naked man on the couch? Is... is there something I need to know?"

Despite himself, Shishido's lips quirk and he peels his eyes open a bit. 

Waving an arm at him , Hiyoshi answers, "You remember Shishido Ryou, don't you, Kiki? He disappeared a year ago?"

Dropping her purse as her fingers fly up to her mouth, Kiki comes a bit closer and breathes, "Ryou-kun? You're back?"

Voice cracking on a mere affirmative, Shishido just flashes her a thumbs-up and a strained half-grin.

"Where have you been?" she exclaims.

This time he manages a very faint, "Never left."

"Huh?"

Hiyoshi rolls his eyes a bit, "Remember Ryou the dog?"

"Yes, but how... oh. OH!" Kiki stares at him. "You don't mean? Oh my god..." 

For a long, uncomfortable pause she struggles with that new knowledge. Shishido can tell her mind shies away from all he's seen and heard. He can see her eyes bug on the 'he saw us fuck like bunnies on the floor!'-part of the realisation. Eventually her practical and pragmatic self wins over and she declares, in a bossy 'duh' sort of way, "Get the poor man some clothes to wear, Wakashi, or do you plan on having him walk around naked?"

Hiyoshi rolls his eyes again, but does as she says.

_Whipped_ , Shishido thinks a bit smug.

Now that there's a female there to point out the obvious, Mukahi asks, eyes blinking too much, "Do you need something else?"

"Painkiller," he manages after three or four tries. His throat screams at the minor effort. Normally he'd never ask for one of those, can't even remember the last time he took one by his own intent, it was always his mother forcing them on him.

Mukahi runs off. 

Hiyoshi returns and gives him a bundle of exactly one pair of loose, comfortable sweatpants and a button-up pajama top. When he asks if that's alright, Shishido just nods and gives him another thumbs-up.

He can't bother with hiding his nude body, especially now with pain tossing him over the edge of uninhibitedness and the awareness that everybody in the room has seen him lift a leg and pee against a tree. The sweatpants are not as easy as they should be, his hands are shaking, from cold or shock he can't tell, and he's a bit dazed. The ground lurches as he swings his legs over the edge of the couch. After some fumbling he gets both legs in the correct holes, so he tries to stand to hitch them up and nearly faceplants on the low coffee-table for his efforts.

"Here, let me help," Choutarou murmurs.

Shishido wants to shake his head no, he's not a baby, but by the time he's ready to protest Choutarou is already pulling the drawstrings tight so the pants stay up his hips. 

Big, warm hands usher him to sit again and then proceed with helping his arms into the sleeves. Shishido tries a button, but he takes so long with sweat beading his forehead that Choutarou takes over again. His knuckles brush against his belly as he pops them deftly through the holes. Mouth dry, Shishido stares openly at Choutarou's face, taking in the little frown and wanting to say I'm sorry. For invading your privacy. For not saying anything. For letting you suffer. For being so selfish.

Several times he opens his mouth to say just that, but the words never actually take enough form in his mind for him to speak them. Fingers brush against his stomach, higher now, just past his navel, the contact almost ticklish if it weren't for the trail of heat they leave in their wake. Shishido gets out a broken "Choutarou," though it honestly sounds more like Hhhtaro. 

He wants to say sorry, honest, but when Choutarou looks at him, as tense frown on his face that's not angry and not annoyed, the apology is swallowed. Brow furrowed and mouth tight, Choutarou's eyes are huge and dark and shiny in a way that makes Shishido wonder what's wrong besides the obvious. This time he's ready to speak, lips parting to do so, but Choutarou is awfully close and somehow Shishido must've started to lean forward and he doesn't know what the hell is happening, not until to dawns on him that's it's Choutarou who is coming closer and who's looking as if he's about to-

Stunned, he sits there, like a complete moron, while Choutarou presses his mouth to his. 

Instead of freaking as he normally would have, the only thing on his mind is _warm_ and then Choutarou is already pulling back again. 

Shishido blinks.

Choutarou blinks back and flushes, eyes darting away.

Shishido blinks again. 

In the vast silence that follows only Mukahi can be heard hissing, in that way of his that's anything but subtle, "See! Brain damage; otherwise he would've popped a vessel or three by now!" 

Choutarou finishes up Shishido's buttons and mumbles something about socks and is gone. Watching his retreating back, Shishido tries to make sense of what happened, but his thoughts are such a mess, chasing each other in useless circles that the only thing he manages in another blink.

"Well, say something!" Mukahi exclaims.

The look he gives Mukahi is such an intense beam of 'what the fucking hell do you want me to say to that?!' that the redhead flinches. 

Pulling his legs up and curling back onto the couch, Shishido makes it clear that he does not want to talk about it. Belatedly he starts to go red, shocked that Choutarou had the guts to do in in front of the whole team plus Kiki. Everybody saw that. Well fucking hell. 

"Drink your painkiller, Ryou," Jiroh says, starting him momentarily out of his deepening embarrassment. 

When he reaches, Shishido sees his hands shake worse, somehow, than before. So uncool, it was such a chaste kiss, too, really. Jiroh has to help him with the glass and every sip burns down his abused throat. With one last thick swallow, he empties the glass. Jiroh sets it on the table and curls up next to him, pressing close. 

Choutarou comes back with Hiyoshi, still beet-red in the face and hands him a pair of thick woolen socks. Besides the flush, it's as though nothing happened. Shishido hopes a bit he isn't getting delusional as well. Slowly, he puts the socks on. His toes are icy.

Atobe perches on the arm of the couch next to him. Most of his pomp and flair is gone, leaving him strangely... normal. He says, "I have called your family and-" he trails off holding out a sleek expensive mobile out to him, the wailing from his mother's voice ringing from the receiver.

"Okaa-san?" he manages, voice a breathy grunt.

"R-Ryou?" her voices comes, thick and sobbing on his name.

"Aa," he says softly.

"Oh, oh. Oh god, oh thank you, oh Ryou-" and on and on in that fashion, until Shishido want to dig a hole (with a shovel, okay, nice and civilized not like a dog at all!) and bury himself with guilt. It sounds as though he has broken his mother's heart. 

The rest of the night is a strange blur. Jiroh refuses to be pried away from him and continues to sit, looking at him occasionally, but not asking or wanting anything else from him. He doesn't even budge when Mukahi comes over with some salve against extensive bruising for his neck. His fingers are soft and careful, gentle, and it hurts like hell, but Shishido watches Mukahi's face as he works it into his skin with bemusement. And then. Then his parents and his aniki arrive. The emotions that come with this reunion are too raw, to deep. His mother sobs and hugs him over and over again, hands never leaving him. His aniki cries like a baby. His father touches Shishido's nose with his index finger, something he hasn't done he was a child, just before Shishido decided he was too big for parental affection. 

With difficulty he croaks out the story of his sprouting hair, tail, four legs and starting to drool. Editing out the parts that led up to that, all having to do with Choutarou, of course. So when he tells it like that, it sounds like one of the most random things ever to happen. Old man. Poof. Dog. Lots and lots of drool. 

It doesn't make for a nice or exciting fairy-tale.

He tells about Kirihara a bit and about being on the streets for a while. Then comes a big part all of them know, over half a year of staying with Choutarou. There's not much to add to that, most of them were there. And, at last, the steady decline into Dog. The part where he transforms back is quite superfluous. 

Everybody is bursting with questions. Atobe wants to know more about why Shishido thinks he might've been cursed. Atobe always was far too insightful for his own damn good. No matter what Atobe asks, or how clever he formulates it and despite his insight pose, he can't get him to reveal anything. 

Mukahi and Jiroh want to know how it was being a dog. The crudest details first, of course. Shishido's temper flares a bit and just as he contemplates yanking Mukahi's stupid hair, Oshitari steps in, hauling Mukahi away by his collar, causing the redhead to splutter. Jiroh is easily silenced, one hard glance and suddenly he's _so_ tired. He closes his eyes, snores loudly, but isn't really sleeping. Shishido digs his elbow in for good measure. 

His parents are without doubt the worst. They want to know why he didn't say anything. Shishido tries to explain his reasons, bar the Choutarou-related ones, but they don't understand. We thought you were dead, Ryou, they say, but why, Ryou, why couldn't you let us know? We were so worried. 

Guilt forms a tight, cold knot just under his solar plexus. 

Why, indeed, didn't he just tell them? The reasons that seemed so reasonable and valid then seem rather empty now. Much of his motives were rooted, deep, in emotions, something he can't really explain. Perhaps part of it was the curse, he'll never know. He isn't sure he believes that, either. After all, Shishido knows himself well enough to concede that, yes, maybe he just is that selfish. On the other hand, he never wanted to be a dog, so it doesn't all fit well together, making less and less sense as they continue to heap question after question on his shoulders. 

It goes on for an hour, maybe longer. His mother cries. Shishido tries, over and over, to make them understand, if just a bit. Eventually his voice grows so faint that everybody has to strain to hear him and, before long, is gone completely. 

His mother wipes her eyes with a drenched kerchief. Kiki gives her a dry one, the sixth or seventh by now. "Enough," she says with a wet sniffle, "you're back. That's all that matters." 

Her hand cups his cheek, her eyes swim. "Let's go home, Ryou," she whispers and leans over to kiss his forehead.

Under any other circumstances the tantrum he'd throw at her smooching him like that would've been legendary. Now he just freezes, heart slamming into a full-stop. Home.

Before he can stop himself, his eyes go to Choutarou. 

Home.

Home, for all intents and purposes, is with Choutarou now. Maybe a part of the deep impetus behind that word is a remnant of being a dog. It doesn't matter if it is, though, home is not with his parents. 

Choutarou opens his mouth when he sees the look on Shishido's face, but the tears on his mother's face bring him up short and leaves him gaping a bit like a fish on land. 

There's no way he can refuse. Not after the the hell he's dragged them through during his silent stint as a canine. Forcibly, he drags his eyes back to his mother's, nodding a bit. Their eyes meet. Shishido's mother looks at him. Really looks at him. The wet sheen is still there, but right now her eyes are keen, boring into him with only a knowledge a mother could possess. 

He sits blinking against the onslaught of that _knowing_ gaze, when she suddenly says, not breaking eye-contact with him, "Maybe... it's better if. If you went with Ohtori-kun, ne? After all, you've belonged to him for so long. You still look so much out of it. Maybe it's better if you sleep there, where it's familiar. Besides, we don't have a free room at the moment, Sho-chan's family is sleeping over for Christmas, everything is occupied."

He wouldn't know how to answer that, even if he was able to.

"Ohtori-kun, you... don't mind, do you?" She asks, having to tip her head back far to meet his eyes. Next to Choutarou she looks painfully delicate, fragile; he completely dwarfs her. 

"Ah, no, Shishido-san," he manages after gaping some more. "That's okay. After all, Shishido-senpai has been with me for so long. It would be strange if he was gone."

"Ryou's not a dog anymore, Ohtori, you realize that, right?" Atobe drawls, attempting a small joke.

Instead of smiling like the rest of them, Choutarou frowns, "Believe me, I know."

He takes Shishido home.


	5. Chapter Five

**A Dog's Life**

During the ride home, Shishido falls asleep. Fairly instantly, too, since he remembers dragging his body into the car, Choutarou sliding in the seat next to him. He remembers the silence between them and the low purr of the engine. He remembers the blur of color outside the window, a mix of christmas lights decorating windows and porches, everything alight with the occasion. He remembers snow, delicate, small flakes, drifting down. 

Suddenly Choutarou is in his face and a large, warm hand is cupping his shoulder. "We're here, Shishido-san," he tells him. 

Walking hurts and takes ages, and every now and then Choutarou has to grab and support him, but he'll be damned if he'll allow him to carry him like a damsel in distress again. He's good at enduring, but when he slumps on the couch he's bathed in cold sweat and there's a tremor in his limbs. He's not sure if the pain comes from the transformation, the shock, or from the near-strangling. 

The house is dark but for the light in the kitchen. It bathes Shishido in a faint twilight, leaving the rest in comforting darkness. He's exhausted. It's early morning, but how late exactly, he doesn't know. Shishido leans his head back and closes his eyes some more. In the kitchen Choutarou messes around with god knows what, but soon he pads towards him and murmurs, "Shishido-san?"

He peels his lids open. 

"Anything you want?" Choutarou asks.

Pushing himself more up, Shishido thinks about it. He feels dirty and weird and uncomfortable. "Bath?" he manages.

Choutarou nods and is off. Sounds of a bath being prepared reach his ears and he makes a small huddle of his body again. Some while later Choutarou gives him some tea. By the time he finishes it, the bath is ready. There is no word between them all that time. Shishido is too tired and confused. His mind shies away like a scared creature when he tries to delve into things he realizes he should address. Instead of talking, he undresses. He hisses as his body protests at raising his arms to pull the shirt off. Fumbling with buttons is not within his patience to do so now. The drawstrings are loosened and his pants puddle at his ankles. He nearly trips stepping out of them.

There's a big mirror in the bathroom. Shishido can see his whole body until mid-thight. A bit uncanny, it is, to stare at his naked human body again. Some things are exactly the same. The length of his hair, still short and spiky and the overall musculature of his torso, arms and legs. He's still lean, his muscles defined, lithe and slender. But he's skinnier now, a bit too much so. His hipbones arch high and sharp, framing the flat plane below his navel. His ribs show with every intake of breath. Most diverse and novel is the hideously puckered skin over his right hip. Apparently vets don't care much for potential scarring, since hair will cover the marks anyway. Or maybe the wound was so severe that the vet didn't have time for nice and dainty stitches. It's not like he can remember the severity of his tussle with the barb-wire. Secondly is the purple, violent bruising circling his throat like some macabre choker. The collar must've dug in deep, for such marks to form. It's no small surprise his voice has forfeited under such onslaught. 

Shishido lifts his hands. He looks at his fingers, blunt-tipped and somehow still calloused. He can barely wait to hold his racket again. 

The water in the tub is hot, just short of scalding, exactly the way he likes it. His body sinks into it, it feels amazing. One by one his muscles loosen and relax. Breathing becomes easier. Resting his head against the cool tiles on the wall, Shishido just lies there, vegetating. The pain abates slowly. Bath salts clear his head a bit, lifting the daze. Part of him knows there is a lot of decisions to be made, emotional knots to be hacked through. Choutarou _kissed_ him. He doesn't _get_ it. Ten years. Ten fucking years of watching Choutarou fool around with girls. Ten years of being alone. Almost a year of watching Choutarou be with Yuki and after with Naomi. A year of being forced to live like an animal so he could see that liking another man _like that_ is wrong. Why the hell else would he be forced to suffer through all that time of watching the person he loved be with woman? And now Choutarou has pressed his mouth to his, that chase, almost innocent kiss. Except it was given by a man to a man.

It's too confusing. Shishido can't bare to pry the event apart to analyze it. 

Instead he just closes his eyes.

***

He wakes in the pitch-dark only a winter night can have. Confusion leaves him stranded, but only an instant. Lying in the middle of a bed, curled like he would have done when he was a dog (he tries not to compare it too much), Shishido dozes a bit, body heavy with sleep. The blankets are amazingly soft against the few stretches of bare skin and he rubs his cheek into the sheets. Thirst parches his throat and after a while he sits up, cross-legged and rubbing a fist over his eyes. His body feels stiff, as though he's played a too intensive game of tennis where he has to strain for every shot against a superior opponent. But the throbbing, burning pain has left. His throat feels raw, but not as bad as it did some hours ago. Soaking in the bath like that must've worked miracles, he thinks and then he realizes. There's no recollection of getting out of the bath, or dressing and getting in bed. Choutarou must've somehow managed to drag the dead weight of him out of bath, dressed him and carried him to the bed. He must've been knocked out cold, too deep gone in a recovering sleep. 

After a moment of patting down his hair (he always has the most formidable bed-heads) and enjoying the simplicity and normalcy of that action, he swings his legs over the edge. He shuffles towards the door, most of it the lingering sleep that makes him slow. Not pain, there's only an ache where the scar sits on his hip, a stretching burn of a warning that he shouldn't be doing any strange movements, or strain that joint much.

Shishido feels quite good. Besides longing for a decent drink.

In the living room, Choutarou is conked out on the couch. Peering at him for a moment, he sees one of Choutarou's sketch books getting crushed and collecting dog-ears as he slumps on it, so Shishido pries it from under him before it's ruined. As he moves to put it on the table, he glances at the open page. He swallows against the lump that shoots up from the center of his chest and catches in his throat. Choutarou is a good artist, though he'll never shine in art as he does in music, but he's _good_ nonetheless. Shishido has no difficulty making out the dog in the faint light of the moon and the white haze of snow shimmering outside. It's him. When he was a dog, of course. His stomach does the sort of disconcerting backflip Mukahi might do when he turns the pages. All of them are filled with sketches, some in color, some a few lines merely hinting, but page after page is filled with his canine image.

Sure, he's noticed Choutarou drawing at times when they were at the park. But Choutarou has been drawing as long as Shishido has known him, mostly roadside sceneries. He had no idea Choutarou was drawing _him_. 

As he thumbs through it, some of the scenes even trigger memories. It's almost like watching a photo-album and re-capturing the feeling and atmosphere a bit again. The last pages flutter and fall, the book closing. 

Everything in him goes absolutely still. Fingers trembling and palms sweating, he pinches the cover and flips it over again. 

The last drawing is of him. Like all the rest. But on this one he's asleep in the middle of Choutarou's bed, a huddle in a nest of blankets. And human. 

Carefully he puts the sketch book down, his mind a fog with one thought after the other hiccoughing into view, before being swallowed just as quickly again. Shishido lumbers into the kitchen. 

Thirsty.

First that, well-deserved mental failure later.

The kitchen tiles are cold under his bare feet. Opening the refrigerator (gotta love that opposable thumb) and standing in the long square stretch of light, Shishido eyes the contents. He's been drinking water for a year. Suddenly there's soft drinks and milk and juice and he doesn't know what to grab first. Eventually he chooses the jug of fresh orange juice. He's a carnivore as heart, meat always his primary choice, but he's had no fruit and no raw vegetables either, for a year. His mouth waters (like a dog drooling and _don't_ think about it!) as the zesty scent fills the air when he pours a glass full to the brim. 

It's gone in barely four gulps.

The bob of his throat hurts, yes, but it tastes amazing. 

He moans happily, closing his eyes, savoring the tangy aftertaste. The second glass he drinks lasts longer, swallowing more slowly. Emptying the jug on his third go, he hums with pleasure. That something as lame as orange juice can make him so elated. 

"Fuck yeah," he grunts, inhaling the smell again. 

Just as he starts to sip, elbows leaning on the kitchen counter, a muzzy voice asks, "Uhm. Shishido-san? W -what... are you doing?"

Jumping, he spins around, slopping juice on his hand. He switches the glass between hands and sucks it off his fingers, scowling. "I'm drinking orange juice?" he states in his most deadpan sort of tone.

"Ah," Choutarou seems a bit red in the face. "It sounded a bit as though-" he trails off, getting impossibly redder.

Shishido blinks, "Eh? As what?" When Choutarou just splutters, he shrugs and nods at the jug, "I sorta drank it all, sorry about that." 

Shaking his head a bit, Choutarou's lips quirk, though the flush is slow to leave his cheeks, "That's okay, Shishido-san," he says. Tilting his head a bit, eyes big and glimmering in the light, he studies him. "You're looking a whole lot better," he tells him.

"Aa," Shishido nods. "Feel a whole damn lot better, too."

There's pressure within his chest, pushing on his heart tight enough it starts to pound heavily in protest. Their eyes meet, but Shishido quickly drops his to the glass of juice to break Choutarou's gaze. He's too confused and Choutarou looking at him like that makes it worse. 

His throat clogs as Choutarou pulls the glass out of Shishido's slackening grip, putting it at a safe distance on the countertop. 

This time Shishido sees it coming. The darkening of Choutarou's eyes, the step closer, crowding him against the kitchen counter, body warm and real. Now he can't look away, not with Choutarou so close their noses brush, not with Choutarou mouthing his name, lips shaking, asking. His gasp is almost (but not really!) a sob when Choutarou presses warm lips to his. He pulls back, enough, that their eyes can focus. Shishido realizes he stands there gaping like an idiot, stiff and unmoving, even though this is what he's wanted so so so much, for so so so long. 

The look Choutarou gives him either scorches him or drowns him, Shishido's not sure. 

Soft breaths ghost across his lips just before Choutarou kisses him again, deeper now, lingering, but still chaste. Their mouths cling a bit as he pulls back. 

"Yuki-chan was right, wasn't she?" he whispers, not really asking.

He doesn't expect Shishido to answer, since he slides his mouth across his again and then he runs his tongue along his bottom lip, hot and wet. There's no stopping the strange noise he makes, something between a growl and a moan and a bit of a whimper, too, as he parts his lips. His hands come up to fist into Choutarou's shirt, hanging on, when their tongues touch and then glide together. Choutarou tastes of nothing but himself and now a bit of orange juice, too. It's awkward and tentative, teeth clacking too often, but it's the most _amazing_ thing ever. 

They pull back enough to pant for air, mouths still brushing against each other, eyelids fluttering. The bob of Choutarou's throat as he swallows rolls under his hand, the one that at some point has moved up to cup his neck. 

Smiling a bit tremulously, Choutarou reaches to trail fingers over his cheekbone, his ear and then to dig into his hair. Angling him and bringing their faces together again. They strain against each other as they kiss, steadier now but at the same time rougher, deeper and demanding. Shishido starts to loose himself in the urge for more, somehow, with his hands clenching into Choutarou's shoulders hard enough to hurt. Everything is his system starts to rush downward, pooling between his legs, the pleasure making his cock nearly numb with it. Nipping at Choutarou's bottom lip, sharp enough to make him hiss between the frantic motion of their tongues twining and the press of their lips, Shishido realizes he's just short of letting go. 

Lips slick with saliva he breaks away, riding his last brain-wave to push Choutarou back. 

"Shishido-san," Choutarou mumbles roughly, leaning forward again. 

_Dammit_ , Shishido scolds himself, _you're the senpai here, now act like one._

He shakes his head, causing hurt to settle on Choutarou's face at the rejection. 

"Hang on," he growls, squeezing his eyes against the arousal unwilling to leave him. "I...I don't get it," he says.

"What? Get what?" Choutarou echoes, eyes still glazed and dark from kissing.

"This!" Shishido snaps, "You! Kissing me! What the hell, Choutarou?"

Staring at Shishido as though he's talking a foreign language, Choutarou whispers, sounding at loss at what appears to him as something obvious, "I. I... I like you."

Shishido feels his eyes go wide, probably in a rather comical bug-eyed sort of way. 

"Like you... like -like _that_. For so long now."

This is it. _This_ is the epitome of thousands of fantasies. Those words have been the prelude to something more in nightly dreams, from which he'd wake alone and hard and slick. By rights he should be overjoyed, tears of happiness and all that jazz as he soulfully utters his own confession. Instead it does the opposite: it enrages Shishido. 

Choutarou must be able to see it, because his eyes widen and he steps back. "Shishido-san?" he says, voice breaking over his name. Probably he thinks Shishido is disgusted or outraged at him for liking him like _that_. He can tell from the black despair that sits in those familiar brown eyes. 

It's all he can do from clocking Choutarou on the nose right then. "Ten years!" he grounds out. 

"Shishido-san?" Choutarou echoes yet again, like a broken record. 

"Ten. Fucking. Years!" he shouts, his voice squeaking most embarrassingly on on the last word as he strains his throat. No matter. Fuck it all to hell, he's got to say it, all of it, out loud, purge it from his system. He takes a deep breath and starts, teeth bared, "You're a real piece of work, aren't you, Choutarou? For ten years I've watched you fool around with girlfriends, but if that's how it is, then that's how it is. On top of that some old ass turns me into a dog, giving me and nice up-close view of how nature is supposed to work. Man and a woman, slot a into b, that's how it's done. And to make it all really, really clear, you were the prime subject during that reality-check. I change back, all nice and redeemed, maybe not cured. But fine, I _get_ it: you were off limits. And now you kiss me and tell you like me? 

"What do you _want_ from me, Choutarou?" The last he screams, livid.

Choutarou recoils for a moment under the onslaught, speechless. Then he rallies. Choutarou never was the push-over everybody believed him to be. "You're the one who didn't care!" he yells back, poking Shishido in the chest.

"Not care? Not _care_? What the hell are you talking about?" Shishido snarls back, not half as impressive as he wants it to be with his scratchy voice and squeaking. This is definitely a low for his man pride.

Choutarou can be pretty damn intimidating when he's angry, all tall and looming over Shishido, eyes hard. Sexy. _Don't!_ Shishido screams inwardly. Can't afford to be distracted. Angry now. Mental-breakdown possibly spiked with sexual frustration later. Okay, yeah, maybe sexual frustration first and then mental breakdown. But now angry. Angry good.

"My girlfriend!" Choutarou spits at him, as though it explains everything. 

Blinking, Shishido loses a bit of his 'angry now' momentum to the bewilderment. After a beat he manages a nasty, "Which one? There were a whole lot of those!"

"The one I brought on my birthday back in high school!"

'Huh' doesn't even cover it. Shishido rolls his hand instead.

Choutarou deflates too, but looks bitter when he goes on, "I brought Utako-chan along to see how you'd react. I didn't really dare to just tell you, but I was starting to think you might feel the same way. So I brought Utako along to see what you'd do. Maybe you'd get jealous or sad or angry or distant. But you did _nothing_. Nothing at all. You just congratulated me and acted the exact same," he's clenching and unclenching his hands. "You even said you thought she was really pretty and that I was a lucky guy."

In the lull that follows, Shishido can hear the air whistle between his teeth as he grinds them.

"Shishido-san?" Choutarou prompts.

Counting to ten isn't working. He counts to twenty. Then to fifty. "That," he answers, flaring up anew, "is the most stupid thing I've ever heard."

Looking startled, Choutarou just stares at him. 

"You're smarter than that. Or maybe you really don't know me at all," Shishido sneers, crossing his arms. "What, exactly, did you expect me to do? Fall to my knees and beg? Maybe even do the hair-cutting thing again? Cry a river? I knew the possibly of something like that being mutual was small, I was prepared for a 'no'. You think I'm stupid? You'd think I'd risk ruining our friendship with theatrics over something so delicate and complex? Rather we'd be friends than nothing at all!" 

The part he doesn't say out loud, doesn't need to, is that Choutarou was just a big fucking coward and that if he really wanted Shishido to know, he'd have just _said_ it. 

As if to answer that unspoken accusation, Choutarou speaks softly, "I thought it would pass. It was only you, never another boy, so I though it might be... an obsession maybe. I admired you a lot, so I thought it would pass. And I like girls, too, _you_ were the only boy I..." There's a shrug and nothing more.

"You mean to tell me that I've been pining after you for ten years, that it was completely mutual, but somehow my not bursting out into tears because you got a girlfriend was reason enough to never do anything about it?" Shishido surmises for him, aware he's being cruel and snide, but it's either that or explode. He's flapping his arms in a way that must look absurd rather than furious. Somehow it seems to impress Choutarou anyway since he steps back again.

"And I should've _known_ it was a dumb test? What do you take me for?"

"I was only sixteen, Shishido-san. I didn't want to be _like that_ and my father would-" 

" _Don't!_ " Shishido hisses. "If you finish that sentence, I'm going to hit you. So don't. I'm only one year older than you, Choutarou. I'm your senpai yes, but what you're telling me is that it's my own damn fault for not understanding your little 'Hey look I have a girlfriend, but I actually the real person I like is you. Please get jealous'-experiment." 

There's a spell of utter silence. Choutarou's eyes glimmer, dark and huge. For a moment it looks like he's on the brink of something, maybe to offer Shishido an explanation that actually makes sense. But then his lips shake and his shoulders slump.

No way, he really means it. Shishido shakes his head in disgust.

"Well, fuck you."

That's it, he's out of here. Jaw working with fury, Shishido stomps out of the kitchen. Fuck Choutarou, trying to shove the blame on his shoulders like that. He's a lot of bad things at times, but he'll not be made the fool over _this_. He's already been turned into a dog over it.

Of course, half-expecting it, Choutarou rushes after him, grabbing his shoulder. "Shishido-san!" he says, "I'm.. I'm sorry. That wasn't fair. Not then and not now. And maybe I was... scared to be like- like _that_. I'm not anymore. When you disappeared, I thought I'd-- I'm sorry. Don't leave-"

Shishido could've cheerfully nursed that grudge into the next century. A true, sincere and humble apology is always hard for him. He has to work up to one, most of the time he'll be too late to give it and for it to still matter. Choutarou, on the other hand, can apologize heartfelt and instantly when he realizes he's in the wrong.

Hands slide around him from behind, over his shoulders and to his chest. Against the back of his neck Choutarou's lips mouth "Please," silently. 

Ten years; _gone_. Because Choutarou tried to test him by telling him he had a girlfriend. The goddamn idiot. It's a long time. Ten years of his life wasted over the most inane misunderstanding. Miscommunication doesn't even cover it. It's so absurd, so _weak_ an explanation to ease a decade of yearning on his part. Part of him, the ugly part, wants to spit on this conversation, knock Choutarou's arms away and walk out that door. Maybe snarl a vicious: _too late, Choutarou, how does it feel now, on my side?_ Oh yeah, holding a grudge really would amount to a vindictive sort of justice, wouldn't it?

 _Don't be stupid,_ Shishido tells himself. _You're his senpai, now act like it._

Swallowing, Shishido stamps on his pride, his hurt. Throat working, he whispers softly, forcing the words out, "You're gonna have to call me Ryou. Got it? And-" he swallows again, when he feels the new wetness against the nape of his neck where Choutarou rests his head, "And I'm still furious."

Nodding into his hair, Choutarou agrees, "That's okay." 

Heart thudding right is his throat, he lays his cheek against Choutarou's arm. "And you're gonna have to find a way to make up for all that lost time!" he adds, face heating up at what he is asking but not saying.

"Okay," Choutarou whispers against his jaw. "I don't mind."

"You... you don't?"

Lips press down just where his jaw meets his ear, lingering. Then he breathes into Shishido's ear, "S-should I start right now?"

Holy fucking hell.

Despite that slight stutter, that shy tone, the curve of lips against his ear tells him enough. They're little kisses, but deep and pressing, causing him to bare his neck for more. Choutarou drops his mouth against the tendon straining there and bites down softly. 

Somehow, Shishido hops and stumbles backward into the bedroom, Choutarou not really cooperating, with his arms winding tighter around him still and making the trip all the more clumsy. The mattress pushes against the back of his knees and he tips backward, grabbing at Choutarou and dragging him along. They land with a clack of teeth that disconnects their kiss and Shishido nearly breaks his nose on Choutarou's chin. 

"Ow," he mutters, clutching throbbing his nose. 

Choutarou braces himself on his arms at either side of Shidhido's torso, so very very careful with his heavier weight. Fingers brush his face delicately and he asks anxiously, "You okay? I'm so sorry, I-"

"Stop that," he snaps, suddenly annoyed. "I'm not gonna break, you don't have to be all... gentle and coddling like that!"

At Choutarou's wide eyed-look, he adds a rather angry and completely unnecessary jab of: "I'm not a goddamned girl."

Expression softening, Choutarou leans down, hovering agonizingly close, but not kissing yet. Instead he breathes across his mouth, "I know that."

With a heave, he lifts him and drops him in the middle of the bed, the sheets still mussed the same as when he woke up. They lump under his back as Choutarou crawls up his body. "I know that," Choutarou murmurs against the soft part of his jaw.

Big, hot hands slide up his pajama top, palms dragging across the flat expanse of first his stomach and then up his chest. "I know that," Choutarou gasps against his mouth as Shishido starts to push his own hands up the back of Choutarou's shirt.

Splaying his hands against the small of Choutarou's back, he urges him down, to cover him completely. Sure, he's quite heavy, but it's everything he wants right now. They groan against each other's lips as Choutarou settles. And, oh god, then he flexes his hips down into the cradle of Shishido's thighs, their erections straining together... it's so _good_ it makes his eyes roll back. Shishido bites down hard as Choutarou all but moans, "I know that."

He's waited long enough, Shishido thinks, they'll do it all nice and proper and sweet and slow later when he isn't about to scream with pent up frustration. Fingers crossed, of course, that there'll be a later, because there's always a chance Choutarou might still decide that sex with another man is not what he thought it'd be. Now, though, shoving that notion away, he all but practically rips at Choutarou's shirt.

"Shishi-" Choutarou splutters as he drags it half over his head, smothering the rest of his name.

"I told you to call me Ryou," he grunts, tugging as the shirt bunches around toned shoulders, refusing to budge. "Take it off!" 

Instead of being logical about it they start to tear at each other's clothes, yanking and hissing and muttering curses as they try, not realizing they're getting more in each other's way than making progress. Eventually it dawns on Choutarou that neither of their pants can come of if he stays kneeling between Shishido's legs. They pull apart long enough to kick them off, barely done before reaching again.

Pressing their bodies flush, on their sides now, Shishido rubs his face into the crook of Choutarou's neck, uttering a sharp curse as hot, feverish skin slides against his. He's so hard it hurts, his hands and legs shaking with the ache of it. Shoving a thigh between Choutarou's, he shifts a bit and rubs his erection against it, groaning. Only to tense, worried that he might just have made an enormous faux-pass, that Choutarou will be shocked and maybe grossed out, pulling away and leaving... Instead a mouth slides against his cheek, leaving a rather wet trail, open on a scream that won't come as he wiggles a bit, trying to compromise between their difference in height until their hips align. Choutarou's back arches, pressing forward, seeking more friction. And he whimpers , "please, please," and louder still, "please, please, _please_ ," when Shishido remains inert in his surprise. 

Just short of aggressive, Choutarou crushes his mouth against his, clattering their teeth together yet again. Beyond caring, Shishido pushes back, sliding his tongue into a mouth that opens on breathy noise, fisting one hand in Choutarou's hair, the other grabbing a hip as he obliges and starts to move. And _oh_. Oh God. The pleasure is so sharp he feels drunk on it, too sharp to keep kissing properly, instead just murmuring voicelessly, meaninglessly against each other's faces. They rock against each other, finding a rhythm, the building heat delicious. Choutarou's endless mantra of 'please' has dissolved into sharp breaths, eyes clenching shut as he throws his head back. Neck exposed like that, offering like that, Shishido can't help but latch onto it, sucking and biting bruises into the pale skin. The need to mark a sort of savage, basic urge to claim Choutarou, to leave a visible print, to show that he's _his_. 

He's so damn close as they strain together and when Shishido hooks a leg over Choutarou, his head lolls forwards again, resting their foreheads together. Drinking in the sight of that flushed face, those kiss-roughned lips, the slack-jawed look on his face as he gasps out in desire, Shishido stares unabashedly. But when Choutarou opens his eyes, gleaming in the moonlight and pupils so huge they nearly drown out that warm brown of his irises, Shishido sobs as all doubt about Choutarou's feelings falls away. Gazing into that unashamed and painfully aware look, there's no doubt that Choutarou knows exactly what is happening, with whom it is happening and still _wants_ it, even though Shishido is not a woman. 

And finally, finally he sobs, "Ryou," against his temple in an open-mouthed kiss. Finally not just 'Ryou', the dog, whose name is called in command. Now it's just Ryou, _him_ , his name a plea or declaration of sorts. He murmurs his pleasure against Choutarou's jaw.

"Again," he urges, "say it again," he repeats, hand going, down, down, to curl around Choutarou's cock and _holyfuckinghell_ , he's well... equipped. Completely in proportion with the rest of his body, which is... huge. Dammit. 

This is gonna give him a complex, Shishido just knows it.

He forgets to compare, however, when Choutarou all but screams, "Ryou!" at the simple, slow tug he gives him. 

"Okay? Is this... alright?" he asks, his own voice short of a growl. 

Choutarou curls against him, hands scrambling for purchase on the sweat-slick skin of his back. Face burning, he says roughly, mouth on Shishido's chin, "Never knew it could... feel so good." He licks a path from Shishido's chin to his lips and groans again. "So _good_."

He licks back, sloppy and tasting. "Oh yeah?" he murmurs. 

Frantic, Choutarou nods.

Humming, a smirk on his lips, causing Choutarou to blink at the predatory look on his face, he starts to wriggle down. 

Lingering long at Choutarou's chest, he bites bruise after bruise into the skin, growling. He'll latch down hard, sucking the skin between his lips, feeling the pressure against his tongue as his teeth worry it, still gently, just before biting down, possessive. Every red mark pleases him inordinately, causing him to do the closest thing to purring. When there's enough marks to for him to grin, smug, he moves on, opening his lips over a nipple. Choutarou utters some choice expletives, his body going taut as he laves the flat of his tongue over the darker skin. Hand pulling at his hair hard enough to hurt, Shishido bites down there, too, but gently this time. Loving the way Choutarou begs and wriggles and pants, the little moans he makes, the tremor of impending orgasm in his limbs, Shishido nibs the sensitive skin, alternately liking and nibbling, until Choutarou must be sensitive enough for it to hurt.

Inching down further still, he mouths sweet promises against Choutarou's ribs, loving the way his body curls around Shishido's mouth, as though he can't decide whether it's too much, or too little. He whines and curses, trembling. Going down even more, he spends an inordinate of time nuzzling Choutarou's belly, which is both hard with muscle and soft with skin. He nibbles on a hipbone, licks the navel, follows the trail of dark hair, down, down, but never far enough. 

Choutarou yanks his hair, painfully so, openly begging and making mewling noises. Besides the slurred gasp of his given name, now and then, he's just babbling incoherently. 

Smiling, he drops down the last inches and slides his mouth over Choutarou's cock. By then his name is between a prayer and a curse on Choutarou's lips, an endless cycle of, "Ryou, Ryou, RyouRyouRyouRyou _Ryou..._ " 

To be honest, it's not like he's got a vast supply of knowledge to draw on when it comes to blow-jobs. Three partners, remember? 

Though he doesn't seem to need it. His stomach in knots, Shishido wraps his mouth around Choutarou's erection, a bit worried he might be doing it wrong. But as he tastes the bitter desire in his mouth, he presses and slides his tongue against and around the swollen cock, tasting. Barely even that and Choutarou chokes, gasping in a raw moan "Ryou!" as he shudders his release, sobbing as if in pain. 

Coughing, the taste is as bad as ever, Shishido grips Choutarou's hips, the movements uncontrolled in climax, arching and bucking. When he's certain the peak of Choutarou's orgasm is past, when he's nothing but a shivering, mewling mess, he pulls away. 

Snuggling, he presses his face against Choutarou's fast rising and falling chest, listing for the wild heartbeat. He lets Choutarou catch his breath, waits for the after-shocks to stop, as rubs himself softly against the thigh between his legs. Desperate to alleviate the ache, if only a little.

Sluggish hands tug at him a bit and Shishido follows, until they're face to face. Choutarou kisses him slow, just skimming his lips across his mouth as he looks him in the eye. Fingers start to tickle down his spine, tracing the bumps, up and down, before his palms press down to and start to map his body, inch per inch. Never breaking eye-contact. 

And it's totally stupid that he's terrified all of a sudden. It's gonna happen now, tonight, all the way, he knows it. They've both had sex, they're not fumbling teenagers with only vague notions of 'the plug goes into the contact'. Swallowing thickly, mouth a strange mix of oranges and come, Shishido sure feels like a stupid kid again, palms moist and trembling, sweat beading on his forehead. _Come on, you loser,_ he groans inwardly, _get a grip!_

Which is what Choutarou _is_ getting.

On his dick that is.

Face burning, he hides against Choutarou's shoulder. Which is bit dumb, since he's just had Choutarou's dick in his mouth and all, but he can't help it.

"This okay?" Choutarou whispers into his hair, voice thick and strained. 

Nodding takes ages. Every bit of focus melts down into the liquid poll of mercury pleasure swelling unbearably. It takes him even longer to realize that Choutarou is worried and keeps asking, hand nearly stopping and _oh god don't stop!_

"Am I hurting you? Is- is this alright?" he wants to know.

"Yeah, it's a damned sight better than alright," he manages. 

Speeding up again, he murmurs something, lips warm and slick on his ear, sending shivers down Shishido's spine, which just pool there, staying, adding even more to the unbearable tide. Making out words seems overly strenuous, but Choutarou just said, "Can you move up a bit? Don't... don't hide please, I want to watch your face."

He's still blushing, cheeks almost as hot as the area between his legs, but he lets Choutarou press fingers under his chin, tipping his face up so they are eye to eye again. 

Everything begins to blur together when Choutarou starts to move. He pushes Shishido on his back and starts to explore. First with his hands. Then with his mouth. Distantly Shishido knows he's making awfully strange noises, but it's all he can do but dig his fingers alternately into the sheets or his partner's biceps. His skin is on fire. His eyes roll back. And he screams, voice doing that embarrassing creaking halfway through again, when Choutarou takes him in his mouth. It doesn't matter if he's never done it before, because it's warm and wet and seeing Choutarou's head between his thighs is really just about enough to drive him clean over the edge. Honestly fighting to hang on, not wanting to come, but not wanting Choutarou to stop, he's half-arched up, body a taut, trembling line. Just then Choutarou's fingers trail further back, searching, just a bit too clumsy when he presses... inside.

"S-stop!"

As though scorched, Choutarou draws his hands, his mouth, away. Shishido flops lifelessly back down onto the sheets, his breath coming in such sharp and fast gasps he's lightheaded with it. That was close.

Kneeling between his legs, Choutarou bows his head, "I- I'm so sorry, I didn't-"

Leaning up enough to box lightly around Choutarou's ears, more affectionate than anything else really, he mutters, "Idiot. I didn't want to come yet. Just... come here."

He opens his arms, inviting, and draws the other flush against him. "You worry too much," he tells him between kisses. Humming, Choutarou drops his eyes and rubs their noses together.

"Ryou?" he asks, voice wavering.

There's no need to ask what. Mouth slow and open, he kisses and nibbles the edge of Choutarou's jaw and wraps his legs around him until their bodies, every possible inch, presses together tight. Telling him yes. Already Choutarou is hard again, almost a painful ridge in the crease of his hip. What he does say is, "Where-"

"Drawer."

They were not called Hyoutei's best doubles pair for nothing. Seigaku's golden pair might be able to light up with a strange aura and... glow, but they didn't need that. Shishido Ryou and Ohtori Choutarou understood each other just fine back then and they still do, now. So, one word responses are more than adequate to act on. 

Dragging his body sideways a bit, Shishido fumbles with a drawer and roots around in it until he finds what he needs. The small, clear bottle is put down next to him. Struggling, he tries to open the condom, but with his arms above Choutarou's head and still being kissed, he's not getting it. He pushes Choutarou back and sits up, trying again. Probably because his hands are sweaty and shaking a bit, it takes a while. Then he holds it up to the meagre light, figuring out the right side. There's a stab of apprehension. He's never been on the bottom before and he's a bit scared. Not enough, though, to stop. Wouldn't be able to stop if his life depended on it. Sitting between Choutarou's thighs, he makes quick work of it, rolling it down and receiving a strangled gasp.

"Ah, uhm, Shi- hmmm. Ryou?" Choutarou says, giving him a weird look.

"What?" he answers suspiciously.

Flushed so red he's almost radiating neon light, Choutarou mumbles, "Shouldn't I be... the..." he purses his lips, frowning and getting impossibly redder still, "... the girl?" 

However profound and serious this moment should be, Shishido finds himself laughing.

Choutarou scowls a bit, but goes on, "Since you're my senpai... and," the scowl turns quite fierce, "and you've done this before, right?"

Any other time he'd have something choice to say about the nerve of being jealous when it's Choutarou who has doubtlessly been with more people than he has. On the other hand, it's a bit flattering. 

"Silly," he says and leans down. 

He smiles into their kiss as he climbs onto Choutarou's lap, straddling. The utterly guttural moan that movement draws out is possibly the most beautiful thing he's ever heard. Rocking his hips, he gets another groan, one even deeper than the last, especially when he spreads his palms on Choutarou's chest, over his nipples and slowly drags his hands up and down. Choutarou bares his neck again, so he latches his mouth onto it, teeth dragging down a straining tendon. If anything, Choutarou's throat will carry as much bruises as his own, come morning. He can't help himself though, he's a biter. With fingers curled tight in the hair at his nape and with Choutarou murmuring nonsense against his lips, he asks, "Don't you want to? Never wondered how it would feel, to be inside of me?"

Now Choutarou bites down on his lip, shivering. " _Don't..._ " he groans, "I'm too close."

"Yeah," Shishido moans back, "me too." The moment, which is one mess of quivering tension of them rocking together, Shishido's cock sliding in an increasingly slick path against Choutarou's stomach and the latter pushing back, dissolves when Shishido stops, somehow, and puts his cheek against Choutarou's, eyes closed. "You sure-"

He wants to ask, sincere and concerned, whether this really is what Choutarou wants.

Instead Choutarou brings his big hands up to cup his face as he returns, smiling, "You worry too much."

It's a replay of his first time with a man, only positions reversed. 

Straddling like that aches too much to keep up, his hip giving a twinge with every rocking motion. Instead Choutarou spoons him from behind, on their sides, Shishido's bad hip up. Heart going a mile a minute with fear, it's impossible to relax as Choutarou presses in. It hurts. But he hears himself chant, pained, "Keep going, keep going, keep going..." over and over until the burning slide stops and he can feel the sharp cut of hipbones against his backside.

"Ryou," Choutarou says, voice deep and husky and strained. He knows what's it like, being inside someone like that, and he distantly thinks that Choutarou deserves a trophy for managing to keep still. 

"I'm okay," he assures, the pain abating some when he relaxes, "just fine." 

There's a good thing about their height difference, too, he discovers. Even like this, Choutarou can prop himself on an elbow and lean over him to press their mouths together, stare in each other's eyes, see each other's expressions. Prying the clutching fingers from his side, he guides Choutarou's hand to wrap around his cock, stoking with himself with the other's hand. Kissing takes too much focus after a while as he feels the pressure build again, so instead he just pants, open-mouthed, against his partner's jaw. Something kindles when Choutarou sweeps his thumb through the slickness at the top and he pleads, "Please, move, ohplease _please_." There's no way he'll last much longer at this rate.

Choutarou moves.

Slowly, shallowly at first, teeth gritted and all but appearing as if in terrible agony, Choutarou slides in, out. Like wildfire pleasure starts to spread through him, just a spark at first, but as the pace speeds up, his partner losing control, it ignites into a roaring flame. Arching, he presses back, taking him deeper, faster. "More," he hears himself growl and Choutarou sobs, burying his face against the curve of Shishido's throat, adding another bruise to the collection as he presses his teeth into the skin. Quite unconsciously, Choutarou shifts, just a bit, and hits that spot inside him which makes his body curve and draw up in a taut line against his partner's torso.

"Hurt you?" Choutarou manages with what sounds supreme discipline and actually falters a bit.

Shaking his head wildly, knocking against the other's face in his frenzy, he grunts, "NO! Don't stop, oh, god _please_ Choutarou."

Again and again, Choutarou pushes in, drilling into that spot over and over until the need swells so bad it hurts. He's sobbing on the pain, the pleasure, whatever it is, until he free-falls with a hoarse gasp, shivering and trembling, head tipping back onto a tightly drawn shoulder. Everything goes blank for a glorious moment, the throb of his heart like white noise, which seems to last forever and is still over too soon, if that's possible. His heart pounds, his ears ring and he heaves for air, skin burning. 

He hooks an arm behind his head, slipping his fingers into Choutarou's hair. The latter, erratic in is own last moments, pushing and thrusting in to the hilt, hard, over and over and over until he's gone, going rigid, a clean, hard flex of muscles, sobbing Shishido's given name as he clings at him, arms around his chest in a backward hug, as if he can never let go again. 

For the longest while, Choutarou holds him like that, face resting against the back of his neck, sobbing as the tremors continue to shudder through him, hard enough that Shishido can feel them pass over into his own body. As his heated skin grows cold, sweat liming them uncomfortably together and itching, their wild breathing slows and synchronizes. 

Completely boneless, that's how he feels. Moving is out of the question.

 _Wow._ Shishido thinks, awestruck. And then _ouch_ , when Choutarou pulls out and a burning stab lances up his spine. Their skin wrenches apart in a tacky rip. 

Shishido just lies there, drifting, as Choutarou moves around, before they somehow end up face to face again. They kiss, almost carefully now, as if anything more would cause them to fly apart into each other again. It's soft and calm and slow, just brushing their lips together and it's so tender than it makes him feel as though he's going to fly apart at the seams anyway, since his throbbing heart is about burst through his ribs because it needs more room to keep working as it should.

_I love you._

He thinks at Choutarou, drawing back a bit and offering him a tentative slime. Only he must have said it, because Choutarou's eyes glimmer too much in the dark, grow too damp. Shishido softly wipes the wetness away with the pad of his thumbs as he presses another close-mouthed but lingering kiss on Choutarou's mouth. Then he pulls him closer, hands cupped in sweat-damp hair as he draws Choutarou's head against his chest so that he can rest his cheek against those curls. Tugging, Choutarou (his lover, now?) gets some of the tangled sheets over their bodies, before he burrows into Shishido's body, arms around his chest, legs tangled, nuzzling against his collarbone, mindful of the ring of purple blooming there.

Almost instantly Shishido must fall asleep. And just as instantly he wakes up again-

-as Choutarou repeats, loud and clear, those three words.

He'd be lying if he'd say that there was no wetness on _his_ face now.

***

Sometime during what must now be early morning, Shishido wakes up, his body heavy and lethargic. There's no way he's been dreaming again, because the explanation for his stomach and thighs being covered in come is right besides him, covering Shishido in as many limbs as humanly possible. It seems Choutarou is as much of a snuggler as he is a smotherer. He finger-combs the hair, loosening the sweat-hardened curls into soft locks again, until eyes flutter open, drowsily. As that dazed gaze meets his own eyes, Choutarou's face lights up, smiling. 

They make love twice more that night.

*** 

When he opens his eyes this time, it's rather light out. Every muscle is his body screams in protest as he moves and this time it's his own damn fault. And Choutarou's. Not that he _minds_ , of course.

All his groaning and grunting and hissing must've waken up Choutarou, who buries his face somewhere against Shishido's ribs with a disapproving noise as light stabs at his retinas. "What time is it?" he slurs sleepily. 

Glancing at the clock, Shishido answers, "Almost noon." 

Dammit, he has to get up and clean himself. He promised his mother to spend Christmas day with them. 

Raising his head enough to plop it down onto Shishido's stomach, Choutarou peers up at him and says, "It's Christmas day."

"Hmm," he hums, finger-combing the mad nest that Choutarou's hair is in the morning. "I haven't got a present for you."

Choutarou winks, "No, cause I already got it," he pauses dramatically and adds, "Your heart."

Groaning, he grabs a pillow and hits Choutarou across the head with it, "That's just lame, Ohtori, god. Leave the romance to Oshitari, okay?"

Arms over his head to ward off Shishido's attack, Choutarou laughs. It's that full-blown, unrestrained sound that once shocked Naomi so.

When he's satisfied that his boyfriend (Choutarou is his boyfriend. HAH! Irony, take that!) is too breathless with laughter to utter more sappy nonsense like that, he ceases pummeling. Ruffling the hair instead, before flopping down.

Choutarou jumps up and grins, "But I got _you_ something!" and is off the bed in a second, walking up to his closet, gloriously naked. 

Oh, _yeah_ , he could get used to this. He settles, arms crossed behind his head, to enjoy the view. But then he frowns. How the hell could Choutarou have gotten him, Shishido, who was barely twelve hours ago presumed dead or abducted by got knows what, a present? Unless Choutarou was being all weird and tormenting himself and had bought him something in hope of his miraculous return on the one year mark of his disappearance... which is exactly what happened. 

Barely he catches the brightly wrapped box Choutarou throws at him. 

"Out of practice?" he asks as Shishido fumbles the catch a bit. 

"Quiet, you," he mutters, pursing his lips at the playful smirk on his partner's face. "I have a perfectly good excuse. As in 'woof'." 

That gets a wry eye-roll, but he can tell Choutarou thinks it's funny by the quick twitch in his lips.

For a moment he stares at the nicely wrapped box, meticulously folded and straight corners, the ribbon full on top. But he's impatient by nature, so after those exact five seconds of appreciating he rips the paper off and tosses the ribbon over his shoulder. Something moves inside the box when he shakes it near his ear, but sounds like nothing he can recognize. He lifts the lid. And gapes.

Choutarou is already moving, sprinting out of the room, honestly shrieking with laughter as Shishido does a scramble and roars a loud and mortified " _CHOUTAROU!_ " as he hurls the tasteful black leather collar and leash at his retreating back.

This all sucks.

 

But not really.

_-fin-_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ART FOR A DOG'S LIFE:  
> [Ryou the dog and Choutarou playing together by oriaon/perimones](http://perimones.deviantart.com/art/A-Dog-s-Life-198748402)  
> 


End file.
